photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas pitcher Dominic Voegele stares down a base runner during the Jayhawks' NCAA tournament game against Northeastern on Friday, May 29, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.

The Northeastern baseball team entered Friday’s game at Kansas as the national leader in stolen bases by a margin of 29 more than its next closest competition.

But the Huskies’ proclivity for running dealt them a key blow in a big moment of Friday’s NCAA regional opener.

“Hindsight, obviously, it probably wasn’t the best decision,” Northeastern coach Mike Glavine said, “but I just didn’t want to walk off this field today saying ‘I wish we did this,’ ‘I wish we did that,’ like I have in the past.”

The fourth-seeded Huskies took a big gamble by attempting to steal home in the top of the fourth inning when they were trailing the Jayhawks 4-1.

Northeastern center fielder Ryan Gerety had created immediate danger for KU in the inning when he sent Dominic Voegele’s second pitch of the fourth inning to the wall in center field for a leadoff triple.

“Tyson (Owens) was on that ball in center, and it just grazed the wall, and our center field is kind of offset a little bit, so it grazed down, and that kid could fly,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said.

But Gerety, who went on to record three hits on the day, found himself stuck at third base for quite some time as Voegele recovered to strike out Matt Brinker and AJ Aschettino.

“Listen, so we had just struck out twice, right?” Glavine said. “We had a runner on third, nobody out. I’ve been in this position before, unfortunately, in a situation in a regional, and I didn’t want to coach scared. Simple as that. And I’m sick of being worried about making mistakes, I’m sick of letting the game come to us. Our mindset today was we were going to do what we always do and be who we are and if it doesn’t work out we’re not going to have any regrets.”

Gerety took off running for home while Charlie Criscola was batting. Glavine said that Northeastern thought Voegele was slow getting to the plate with his windup, and that he sped up on his delivery to catcher Augusto Mungarrieta.

“I saw (Gerety) running down the line, but I had no clue that he was going to do that before I started my windup,” Voegele said, “so I mean, I had a changeup gripped and ready to throw the changeup, so I was just focusing on not throwing it in the dirt and just getting it to Augie … I was just hoping it didn’t move, even though I had a changeup grip, I was hoping it didn’t move and went right to him.”

Indeed, the pitch was outside against the left-handed hitter Criscola, and Mungarrieta snagged it in time to apply the tag to Gerety.

Except it wasn’t that simple. Glavine and Gerety contended that Mungarrieta had positioned himself in front of the plate to make the catch on Voegele’s pitch.

“He stepped over the plate and I didn’t really have a lane to go through,” Gerety said postgame. “That’s kind of what we were reviewing, but I guess it didn’t get overturned.”

There was apparently no challenge at all. The umpires initially announced a challenge for catcher’s interference, but as was discussed on the ESPN+ broadcast, what Northeastern was campaigning for was more like the obscure rule of a so-called “catcher’s balk” based on Mungarrieta’s positioning.

“I don’t know if I have to be careful or not, but I’m just going to tell you what I saw, and they missed the call, and that’s just a fact,” Glavine said. “… You cannot step in front of home plate like their catcher did. It’s clear as day. That’s interference. It’s obstruction. And they missed it. Obviously, it’s a huge call. It’s one that shouldn’t be missed.”

It’s also one that is not in fact reviewable, which the umpires announced upon returning to the field moments later. Northeastern was not charged with a challenge.

“I didn’t think it was reviewable and I thought the umpires did a really good job of checking on that,” Fitzgerald said. “So I don’t want to speak for them, but I’m fairly certain they went and asked if that’s reviewable.”

He said he was glad that it proved not to be.

“I think it’s the tip of the plate that if the catcher crosses the tip of the plate and back, technically he is forward,” Fitzgerald said. “But again, it’s a really hard call for an umpire. Think about all the things that are going on — it’s hard to tell, that one.”

That single call did not sink the Huskies, but it did deprive them of a potential run in a game they went on to narrow to a 4-3 margin before KU pulled away late. And they quite uncharacteristically did not end up stealing a single base on the day, to say nothing of home plate.

“Melo Musacchia wasn’t on to get an opportunity there where I wanted him to go, (Harrison) Feinberg didn’t get on today, our top two guys that can really run, so the situations didn’t quite present themselves,” Glavine said. “They did a really good job of keeping our guys off the bases.”