There’s always a moment of silence right before the first pitch. Everyone in the ballpark seems to hold their breath briefly, eagerly awaiting the result as the ball whistles through the air for the first time. 

The silence that came before Tyler Mudd’s first pitch in the Athens Regional game between Boston College baseball and Long Island ended in cheers from the BC dugout. The ball flew perfectly into the strike zone—in retrospect, that moment was a sign of what was to come. 

Mudd pitched 7.1 innings, dealing 10 strikeouts and no walks while giving up seven hits and four runs. Four of those hits and three of those runs came in the eighth inning, when Long Island (30–22, 26–7 Northeast) staged a small rally and cut the Eagles’ (37–22, 17–13 Atlantic Coast) lead to four. But BC pulled through and captured an 8–4 win, keeping their postseason hopes alive following a loss to Liberty on Friday. 

“I know we had gotten the offensive [going] early, but I thought the story of the game was Tyler [Mudd] going as far as he did,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “It was just nice for us to get our style of play on the field.”

After scoring only three runs—all off solo shots—in Friday’s loss, the Eagles found a more balanced offensive approach in Saturday’s noon matchup on Foley Field. 

“I think that’s kind of what we’ve been preaching, especially the past two or three weeks—obviously, things haven’t gone great offensively, but we just kept on preaching about finding our rhythm within our offense, because that’s what we’ve done all year,” BC’s Carter Hendrickson said. 

Julio Solier, the man of the hour after his two home runs on Friday, remained hot, leading off with a line drive double that bounced its way through the gaps in the center field defense with precision. A Ty Mainolfi sacrifice groundout advanced Solier to third, and an RBI single from Nick Wang drove home the Eagles’ first run of the day in the top of the first inning. 

Mudd retired the first seven batters he faced before finally giving up a single in the bottom of the third. But when asked about his performance, the graduate pitcher out of Shrewsberry, Mass. was eager to credit his teammates. 

“The defense behind me played unbelievable. Luke [Gallo] made that diving play early. I don’t think that stats really show, [LIU] hit some balls hard,” Mudd said. “[My teammates] just played unbelievable defensively and got up to an early lead, so it made my job very easy.”

Meanwhile, BC’s offense extended its lead, starting with an RBI sacrifice bunt from Ben Williams and a two-RBI home run from Hendrickson in the second inning. 

“I feel like we were creating a lot of momentum today,” Hendrickson said. “Especially in pregame, a lot of our talk was, ‘Okay, once we find our rhythm, it’s going to be hard to stop us.’ I feel like today we really stacked a lot of at-bats on top of each other, and that’s why we’ve had so much success this season. I think we kind of found our rhythm back today.” 

The Eagles tacked on three more runs in the top of the fourth, starting with Solier hit by a pitch that brought Kyle Wolff home. In the next at-bat, Mainolfi’s bat struck gold for a two-RBI single. BC’s final run of the day came in the fifth, when Jack Toomey hit his second home run in as many games to make it 8–0 Eagles.

After dealing five strikeouts, Mudd finally gave up a run in the bottom of the fifth when Joseph Durso hit a solo shot over the wall in left field. Neither team scored again until the eighth—but when Long Island’s bats finally started finding the ball, BC faltered. The dam broke when Ryan Rivera hammered a three-run home run, cutting the Eagles’ lead to 8–4 and prompting Interdonato to end Mudd’s day at 7.1 innings. 

Chase Hartsell headed to the mound, but gave up a walk on the first at-bat he faced and was immediately replaced by Kyle Kipp. Kipp struck out two batters looking, ending the frame and hindering Long Island’s chances at a comeback. BC’s offense was silent in the ninth, but its defense pulled through once again in the bottom of the frame, holding the lead to come away with an 8–4 win.