First-place Niagara not satisfied heading down the stretch

Curtis McKay slid home just before the tag to give Niagara a 1-0 walk-off win over Rider. The moment meant more than just a late season win though.

It put Niagara in a position to make history.

It put Niagara in first place in the MAAC and gave it a chance to win its first MAAC regular-season title. And it’s coming two years after winning the MAAC tournament for the first time.

But the Purple Eagles have a long way to go to get there. They have seven games left this season before they can officially take the regular-season crown.

“Honestly, we try not to look at that too much,” Niagara junior Rees Kozar said. “It’s great but we can’t control what everybody else is doing around us. All we can control is how we’re playing and sticking to our approach. We’ve had a great season and we look to continue it. It’s exciting being in first place but it’s all for nothing if we don’t continue the way we’ve been playing.”

After winning two of three games against Rider, Niagara now has a 22-16-1 record, including a 17-7 MAAC record. The 2-1 series win puts them ahead of Rider — which has an identical 17-7 conference record — based on a head-to-head tiebreaker.

After opening the series with a 12-3 win, the Purple Eagles’ resolve was tested during the Saturday game when they lost 26-2. The team responded the next day with the aforementioned 1-0 win.

“I was super proud of the guys,” Niagara head coach Matt Spatafora said. “I told them that after the game on Sunday. We talked about it Sunday morning before the game, it was an outlier game, everything that could happen against us I think did; with weak contact, walks, literally everything that could go wrong in a game happened. But yeah they’re a resilient group, super mature. They forgot about it, they just treated it as a loss.”

Niagara turns its attention to a three-game road set against Manhattan, starting at 11 a.m. Friday.

The Purple Eagles were supposed to host Le Moyne on Tuesday but the non-conference game was rained out. As Niagara deals with injuries, the rainout can serve as a blessing in disguise as it gives them more time to rest before they play the Jaspers.

Over the team’s last seven games of the season, Niagara’s opponents have a combined record of 50-80. That includes Manhattan who are 17-27 overall this year.

“I don’t think we have to do anything special,” Spatafora said. “We talked about and try to make every game as important as the game before and the next game after. So we’ve done a really good of staying focused and not overlooking opponents and understanding the job that’s in front of us. So I think the guys are ready and they’re … a mature group and they understand what we need to do to compete in each game.”

While Niagara faces off against the Jaspers, Rider is taking on Quinnipiac in two series that will continue to go a long way in deciding the MAAC regular season title. As much as Niagara will be paying attention to their opponents, Spatafora admitted as fans of college baseball, he and his coaches will sneak a peak at Rider and other national scores over the weekend.