Tyler Mudd delivered a strong performance for Boston College on May 30, leading the Eagles to an 8-4 victory over Long Island University at Foley Field in Athens, Georgia. The win allows Boston College to advance to Sunday’s elimination game in the NCAA baseball tournament’s Athens Regional.
Mudd said after the game, “I felt great. I didn’t get the chance to pitch last week [in the ACC Tournament], so I was very well-rested, and that was the best my arm’s felt in a really long time. So I just felt totally prepared. I’d met with our pitching coach, Ryan Forrest, before the game, and I thought we could win with a good game plan, and then as the game progressed, we got out to an early lead that made my job really easy as a pitcher. The offense was going, the defense played unbelievable behind me…it made my job easy to just be efficient and get off the field.” Mudd kept LIU off base through much of his outing and finished with 10 strikeouts and no walks across eight innings.
Discussing his approach on first-pitch strikes, Mudd said, “First and foremost, talking about first pitch strikes, that’s one of our three pillars on the pitching staff. That’s the most important pitch of the at-bat most times, and I was really confident that I could throw my slider for a strike. Typically hitters are sitting off-speed for that first pitch, so Forrest and I agreed to drop a slider [on hitters]. Throwing it for a strike [meant] that we were going to be in a good spot.” He added regarding LIU’s aggressive approach at bat, “College baseball has all of the analytics now,” he continued, “and we knew that a big thing to highlight was LIU’s first-pitch swing rate. If they were going to be super aggressive or overly aggressive on the first pitch of an at-bat, that was a good time to drop [the slider] and hope that they missed.”
After reaching 100 pitches in his eighth inning of work—when he allowed three runs on four hits—Mudd handed over pitching duties first to Chase Hartsell before Kyle Kipp recorded five outs, including striking out key batters Nick Matson and Cord Dobrinski in the eighth inning.
Boston College head coach Todd Interdonato acknowledged both teams’ efforts after LIU’s season ended, “It was an incredible season from LIU,” said Interdonato in his postgame remarks. “I feel like every time I look up they’re representing the NEC [in postseason]. [Head coach Dan Pirillo] does an incredible job…Then again once you watch them on field you understand why they represent NEC so often.” Interdonato also praised Mudd’s outing: “I know we got offense in there early but I thought story of game was Tyler going as far as he did and as efficient as he was…it was nice for us get our style play on field before Kipp did amazing job finishing it off.”
With this win Boston College advances within double-elimination regional play; their next opponent will be determined by results between Georgia-Liberty later Saturday.
