NEW ORLEANS - The Green Wave offense exploded for seven first-inning runs - including a grand slam off the bat of sophomore first baseman Jeremy Schaffer - as the Tulane University baseball team defeated Boston College, 14-6, in the weekend series finale Sunday afternoon in Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.

Tulane had 19 hits, including five for extra bases, and never let the Eagles back in the game. After BC plated single runs in the second and third innings, the Green Wave answered with two in the fourth, three in the fifth and two in the sixth to all but put the game on ice. With the win, Tulane improves to 1-2 on the year. Boston College, meanwhile, falls to 2-1.

"When you have 19 hits against a club as good as Boston College, obviously we had a real good approach at the plate," Tulane head coach Rick Jones said. "Jamie Bruno gave us a lift today. Blake Crohan had a great day. Seeing Brennan Middleton, Garrett, Crohan, [Brandon] Boudreaux and all of those freshman players coming in against a club that is as experienced and talented as these guys are and have the kind of day offensively after having two tough games is maybe something we can reflect back on in a positive way."

Crohan led all players with four hits and three runs scored while Middleton was 3-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI. Eight of Tulane's nine position starters had at least one hit, including two-hit performances by Boudreaux, Rob Segedin, Schaffer, Cannizaro and Bruno.

On the mound, meanwhile, sophomore right-hander Robby Broach made a successful return to the mound after missing all of last season with an arm injury. Making his first start since May 4, 2008, Broach scattered four runs on six hits while walking one and striking out five in 5.0 innings.

He tossed a perfect first and gave up single runs in the second and third on a home run by BC right fielder John Spatola and an RBI-double by second baseman Matt Hamlet, respectively. Following a scoreless fourth, he ran into a bit of a jam as an infield single drove home a run and a two-out hit brought home another to make it 9-4 with the bases loaded. Broach, however, bounced back to get Spatola to fly out to shallow left to end the threat.

"Just having Robby Broach out there is a big plus for us, there's no question about it," Jones said. "It was big for him to get us through the fifth inning and make some big pitches when he had to. They were one swing away from being right back in the ballgame.

"The thing for Robby today was he didn't have real good command of his off-speed pitches early. He worked really hard to get that off-speed going, and when he did you could see the difference in his effectiveness. I think that is an example of the maturity level that he has."

Tulane wasted little time getting on the board as Boudreaux and Crohan hit back-to-back singles to open the home half of the first, Segedin was hit by a Andrew Del Colle offering to load the bases and Schaffer hammered the first pitch he saw out to left to give the Green Wave a 4-0 lead. From there, Cannizaro and freshman left fielder Alex Byo followed with consecutive one-out singles, Bruno brought the pair home with a two-run double to right, and Middleton put the finishing touch on the seven-run frame with an RBI single to center.

BC reliever Dane Clemens was able to keep Tulane off the scoreboard over the next two innings but the Green Wave got things going again in the fourth when Crohan plated Middleton with a run-scoring single and Segedin brought home Crohan with a triple to right. Boudreaux, Segedin and Schaffer each had RBI singles in the fifth and Bruno drove in a pair in the sixth with a single to right.

"We had some really good at bats today, some really good two-strike at-bats, and it started in the first," Jones said. "Brandon and Blake get us going, Seggy gets hit by the pitch and what's a clean-up hitter supposed to do? He got a hanging breaking ball and he put a good swing on it. I also thought we did a good job of tacking on and we had a lot of good two-out RBI. Those are the kind of things that we can build on."

Del Colle (0-1) was tagged with the loss after allowing seven runs on six hits in 1/3 of an inning of work. Tulane also scored a pair of runs off Clemens, three off of Matt Brazis and two more off Jim Laufer.

The Green Wave return to action on Wednesday, Feb. 24, when they take on cross-town foe UNO at 6 p.m. in Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. From there, Tulane will open a weekend series against Lipscomb on Friday, Feb. 24, with first pitch slated for 6:30 p.m. For ticket information, contact the Tulane Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 861-WAVE.

SATURDAY
NEW ORLEANS - Boston College leadoff hitter Robbie Anston went 4-for-5 with a double, a triple and three RBI as the Tulane University baseball team dropped a 12-0 contest to the Eagles Saturday afternoon in Green Field at Turchin Stadium.

The Green Wave were out-hit, 13-4, and committed three errors to the Eagles' none. With the loss, Tulane falls to 0-2 on the year for the first time since dropping the first two games of the 2002 season at Pepperdine. Boston College, meanwhile, improves to 2-0.

"Today was a very disappointing day because they beat us in every phase of the game," Tulane head coach Rick Jones said. "We had three errors and four hits and gave up 13 hits, didn't pitch well and didn't run the bases well. Defensively, we had breakdowns. It was a very disappointing day all the way around. There's not much of a way to describe it other than that.

"Yesterday, we got down but I felt comfortable with the way we handled ourselves. We fought hard and we did some things you can't do against a good club defensively. We came out of there feeling that we had a bunch of guys who were fighting and clawing there at the end. It didn't look like we were as youthful as we were. Today, you could tell Boston College had a day on the field. We were disappointing in every phase."

For the second consecutive day, Boston College jumped out to the early lead as Anston opened the game with a single and scored on an RBI base knock by first baseman Anthony Melchionda to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead. Anston ripped a two-out, two-run triple to center an inning later and scored the Eagles' fourth run in the fifth inning when he singled and scored on a double-play ball.

The Green Wave's lone hit during that span came in the third when freshman second baseman Brennan Middleton hit a hot shot off the glove of a diving Mickey Wiswall at third base, but was thrown out on the play trying to advance to second base. Tulane's next hit didn't come until the seventh when rookie shortstop Garrett Cannizaro ripped single to center. Freshman catcher Blake Crohan added a one-out single in the eighth while freshman right fielder Cody Robinson had an infield hit in the ninth.

Boston College starter Mike Dennhardt (1-0) gave up just two singles in 7.0 shutout innings while walking five and fanning a pair. For the day, Tulane had just two runners get into scoring position and none reached as far as third base. The lone time in the ballgame Tulane had the tying run at the plate was in the bottom of the fourth when Crohan drew a leadoff walk and Robinson reached on a free pass with two away. Cannizaro stung a Dennhardt offering, but the BC hurler was able to field the ball cleanly and made the throw to first to get out of the inning unscathed.

The Eagles' offense, meanwhile, kept on rolling. A two-error sixth aided in BC's four-run frame which included a three-run homer by Matt Watson. Anston started another four-run inning in the eighth with an RBI-double to right and scored two hitters later when Wiswall hammered a three-run bomb to right to account for the final score.

"[We're playing with] six freshman and two sophomores," Jones said. "Nobody's going to want to hear about youth anymore than they want to hear about Katrina. We said it last night, but we're not going to play the youth card.

"We're playing a team that is projected to be a possible Super Regional team, return almost everyone and they're good. We knew they were going to be a tough challenge for us. The bottom line is we've just got to be ready tomorrow. Competing is not what we're about. We need to find a way to win a ballgame."

Tulane starter Matt Petiton (0-1) was saddled with the loss after allowing four runs on seven hits with a walk and a strikeout in 5.0 innings. The Green Wave bullpen combined for eight runs (three earned) on five hits and a pair of walks. Sophomore Ryan Doiron was the lone Tulane hurler to come away unscathed after standing a leadoff double in a scoreless ninth.

FRIDAY

NEW ORLEANS - Green Wave sophomores Jeremy Schaffer and Matt Ryan had two hits each, and freshman right fielder Cody Robinson hammered a two-run homer, but it was not enough as the Tulane University baseball team dropped its 2010 season opener to Boston College, 8-5, Friday evening in Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.

Tulane had five true freshmen in its starting lineup - centerfielder Brandon Boudreaux, shortstop Garrett Cannizaro, left fielder Blake Crohan, second baseman Brennan Middleton and Robinson in right - and the rookies accounted for four of the Green Wave's 10 hits and four of the five runs. The loss, however, was the first by a Tulane team on opening day since dropping a 5-3, 10-inning decision to TCU on Feb 10, 2006 at the Houston College Classic in Minute Maid Park, and marked the Wave's first season-opening loss at home since falling to Rice 1-0 on Feb. 11, 1990.

"They handled themselves fairly well tonight - from Crohan to Middleton to Cody to Boudreaux," Tulane head baseball coach Rick Jones said. "All of them had some quality at-bats and did some things offensively. Garrett smoked a ball at the shortstop there and had a good walk. They're going to get better as they go. They're talented kids and we knew that, but we would have liked to have gotten a win tonight.

"The thing I was most encouraged by was our freshmen seemed to be pretty collected out there. The first game is out of the way now and the youth card can't be played now. We all know how many freshmen we have. Let's not talk about it anymore. Let's talk about trying to win a ballgame tomorrow."

The Eagles scored three runs on the first inning on back-to-back homers by first baseman Anthony Melchionda and right fielder John Spatola and added five runs over the final three innings to stave off a Green Wave comeback. Tulane plated two runs in the sixth to make it a one-run game and added three more in the ninth, but the early deficit proved to be too much to overcome.

Green Wave starter Conrad Flynn (0-1) was tagged with the loss after giving up four runs on five hits while walking one and striking out nine in six-plus innings of work. Flynn got off to a solid start and was one strike away from opening the game with a scoreless frame.

But with two away, a 1-2 count on Melchionda and BC centerfielder Robbie Anston at third base, Flynn fell behind in the count 3-2 and the Eagles' clean-up hitter hammered a two-run shot to just left of center to put the visiting club on top 2-0. Spatola followed with a first-pitch homer to almost the exact same spot to put BC up by three.

From there, Flynn faced just one more than the minimum over the next five innings before being removed after allowing a leadoff single in the seventh.

"I thought Conrad pitched really well," Jones said. "We were one strike away in the first inning there and couldn't get that third strike. He left two balls up. They're a good club in the middle of the lineup. Obviously, those guys put up big numbers last year and put good swings on them."

Boston College starter Pat Dean (1-0) kept Tulane off the board over the first five innings before Middleton got things going with a leadoff double in the sixth inning. Boudreaux followed with an RBI single to right, Crohan had a single of his own, and after a double-play ball, Schaffer ripped a run-scoring single up the middle to make it a 3-2 ballgame.

The Eagles, however, got a run back in the top of the seventh as Spatola singled, advanced the bases on a sacrifice bunt and a stolen base, and scored on a balk by Tulane reliever Drew Zizinia. An inning later, an errant throw on an attempt to cut down the lead runner with nobody out proved costly as Melchionda ripped a two-run single up the middle to stretch the lead to four at 6-2.

Boston College shortstop Brad Zapenas opened the ninth with a leadoff triple to right central and scored on a single by Mickey Wiswall. Matt Hamlet accounted for the Eagles' final tally with some heads-up base running as he scored for third on a foul-ball fly out behind the plate. On the play, Wiswall broke late toward second to draw a throw and the relay back to the plate was not in time.

The Green Wave did not go away quietly, though, as Cannizaro opened the home half of the ninth with a walk and Robinson blasted a two-run laser over the left field fence to slice the deficit to four. Ryan followed with a single and eventually came around to score on a balk, but that was as close as Tulane would get as BC closer Kevin Moran did not allow a hit and struck out one in his lone inning of work.

"I thought we saw some positive things tonight but we had some youthful mistakes also," Jones said. "We didn't hold their running game down like we wanted to. We had a couple of situations where we let them extend the inning. I thought we battled hard at the plate against some really good pitching. We saw an outstanding lefty and we saw their closer at the end.

"We go down early and we battled back, but in the end a couple of things happened due to youth or whatever and it got us. But they are correctable things. When you're playing as talented a team as Boston College those things will get you. I was encouraged by our offense tonight. We're not going to play the youth card as an excuse. We've got to get ready to go tomorrow."

The Green Wave return to action on Saturday when they continue the series against Boston College and close out the weekend against the Eagles on Sunday. Both games are slated to begin at 1 p.m.