Eagles locked in on ACC
Boston College shortstop Brian Dempsey wasn’t surprised when the pitching, fielding and hitting began working in unison for the Eagles over the closing weeks of the season.
The Eagles’ hopes for a berth in the ACC tournament were upgraded from improbable to possible during a stretch in which won seven of their last nine games overall. BC took 2-of-3 from Virginia Tech and Notre Dame in league play to lock down the final spot in the tournament.
No. 12 seed BC (29-26, 1218) was assigned to Pool A and will open tournament play today at 11 a.m. against No. 8 Clemson (33-23, 15-15) in Durham, N.C. BC will face No. 1 overall seed Louisville (43-13, 21-9) in the second round tomorrow at 11 a.m.
“I think our (starting) pitching was really good over those last games and the bullpen guys were great,” said Dempsey, a junior from Potomac, Md..
“Coach (John Murphy) has been working with all the hitters and when we’ve gotten down in games, we’ve played a lot looser to get hits and score runs. We take a lot of pride in our defense and that helped pick our pitchers up so that was kind of the gist of the whole streak.”
BC’s stretch run was similar to 2016, when the Eagles enjoyed the finest postseason in program history. They needed to sweep a doubleheader at Georgia Tech on the final weekend that year just to qualify for the ACC tournament.
BC earned an NCAA atlarge selection, completed a three-game sweep at the Oxford, (Miss.) Regional and advanced to the Super Regionals for the first time. The Eagles came up one game short of the College World Series when they were eliminated by Miami in a best-of-three series, 2-1.
“When you look at the ACC for almost every team it always seems to come down to the final weekend and we are used to that,” BC coach Mike Gambino said.
“We had a couple more wins that year but we are pretty close resume-wise. If we can make a little bit of noise here, we have a chance to get into NCAA tournament.”
The Eagles have reason for optimism despite facing stern position in the Pool A. BC beat both No. 8 ranked Louisville and No. 20 Clemson in the regular season. The also scored two wins over No. 19 Florida State and one each against No. 1 NC State, No. 17 Georgia Tech and No. 25 Duke.
“We are convinced we can beat anyone from how loose we played over the past two weeks,” said Dempsey, who bats third in the order.
Gambino will hand the ball to right-hander Mason Pelio against Clemson and come back with southpaw Dan Metzdorf against Louisville. Pelio, a freshman AllACC performer, was 4-3 in 12 starts over 66 innings and a 3.82 ERA. Metzdorf finished 7-2 in 11 starts over 73.1 innings with a 2.58 ERA.