BROOKVILLE, N.Y. — Of all the LIU baseball players who needed a day to exhale after a grueling weekend at the Northeast Conference Tournament, right-hander Nick Torres arguably sits atop the list.

Asked at the NCAA Tournament selection show how his arm felt a day after tossing 95 pitches over 6 1/3 scoreless innings in a 7-0, winner-take-all victory against Bryant at Dodd Stadium, Torres replied: "I can barely move it."

Torres, a senior from Woodstock, Ga., held Bryant's relentless offense without an earned run in nine innings spanning two appearances over the weekend en route to earning NEC Tournament MVP honors.

He proved a major reason why the Sharks will open an NCAA Regional on Friday at 7 p.m. against top-seeded Maryland in College Park.

"Before the day on Sunday, I literally said I had one inning in me," Torres said. "And then I was going, and I just felt good. So I just kept telling the coaches, 'I'm good. Just let me keep going.' I was going to go until they pulled me."

Torres confessed on Monday that he was surprised to receive the tournament's MVP award. He figured the honor would go to NEC Pitcher of the Year Joshua Loeschorn, who handily won the tourney opener against Fairleigh Dickinson, and who then vanquished Bryant to the losers' bracket with his first Division I save, which came in a 13-inning game that spanned two days.

Loeschorn as well as outfielder Michael Edelman and Seth Surrett joined Torres on the all-tournament team.

"I mean, I went back and watched the video and I literally had no idea," Torres said about the MVP award. "The whole team thought it was Josh the whole time. And then they said me and I was in shock."

Torres had made a 4 2/3-inning start against Bryant on May 6, but otherwise exclusively had come out of the bullpen over the past three seasons. Still, he had opportunities to stretch out, including a five-inning relief performance at Merrimack on April 24.

Like in the regular-season start against Bryant, Torres handed the ball off to Nick DeSalvo to complete Sunday's NEC tourney finale. Sunday's outing was Torres' longest since a nine-inning shutout against Wagner as a freshman on April 13, 2019.

"I was just trusting the defense," Torres recalled about that three-year old complete game. "And that's what I did Sunday, too."