Young Panthers hope to compete for baseball championship

Though its second year playing at the Charles L. Cost Field was a bit of a step back when compared to the 2011 campaign, the Pitt baseball team still has high hopes of becoming one of the best athletics programs on campus. Though its second year playing at the Charles L. Cost Field was a bit of a step back when compared to the 2011 campaign, the Pitt baseball team still has high hopes of becoming one of the best athletics programs on campus thanks to a slew of talented young players and top-notch facilities.

While the football and basketball teams garner most of the headlines, Pitt baseball manager Joe Jordano has built a program well worth the price of admission to games, which — for anyone with a Pitt ID — is free.

The team plays its home games at the Charles L. Cost field in the 2-year-old Petersen Sports Complex behind Trees Hall on upper campus. Because of the new fan- and player-friendly facilities, which mark a huge improvement over the Panthers’ old home at Trees Field, the college sports website Rivals.com recently declared Pitt one of “college baseball’s rising programs.” And Jordano, who recently reached 700 career wins — 400 of which he recorded at Pitt — is one of the premier managers in the Big East conference. Since his hiring in 1997, he has become the most successful baseball coach in school history by a large margin.

This past season, the Panthers snuck into the Big East Tournament as the No. 8 seed despite a 10-17 conference record. And with only three players graduating, Jordano’s team should find itself higher up the Big East standings next year in what could be its last season in the conference before moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference with most of Pitt’s athletic programs.

“We’re a fairly young team when you look at the field,” Jordano said. “We have almost everyone in a new position or new role.”

Several of those underclassmen are already major contributors on the mound as well as on the field, including junior starting pitchers Ethan Mildren and Matt Wotherspoon, junior outfielder Casey Roche and sophomore catcher Elvin Soto.

Mildren and Wotherspoon are two right-handers who, along with alumnus Matt Iannazzo, made up the Panthers’ trio of regular weekend starters in 2012. A local player from Laurel Highlands High School, Mildren was named Big East Pitcher of the Week for the week of April 2, while teammates Wotherspoon and Roche both earned Big East Weekly Honor Roll selections in 2012.

Soto, who was considered one of the top recruits in the state of New York before joining the Panthers, brings leadership behind the plate and a big bat. He finished second on the team in home runs last spring.

“We’re young. We lost five or six of our top hitters to the draft, but we have some young guys learning the game and coming along well,” Mildren said.

Jordano will also welcome back speedy outfielders Stephen Vranka and Mike Douglas, consistent third baseman Sam Parente and middle infielders Evan Oswald and Derik Wilson, among others.

The Panthers’ roster is also littered with western Pennsylvania talent, featuring players from high schools such as North Allegheny, Gateway, Allderdice and Butler.

Despite struggling in Big East play for much of 2012, Pitt’s season did have a few highlights.

The Panthers recorded a 5-3 victory at home over Penn State — their first win against their in-state rival since 2010 and just a few weeks after the Nittany Lions defeated Pitt in State College, Pa.

“They had our number the last couple times we played them,” Parente said, “but we got some nice at-bats out of some guys and timely hitting.”

The team also showed its offensive potential last season. Pitt scored nine runs or more on almost a dozen occasions, including 22 against Wofford and 14 in a victory over rival West Virginia.

The Panthers finished the season on a strong note by winning back-to-back conference series against Georgetown and Rutgers.

As for the upcoming transition to the ACC, Jordano has embraced the move since it was first reported and many of his players feel the same way.

“It’s very exciting,” Mildren said. “We’ll play some good competition, some of the top teams in the country, and hopefully we can even keep some of our current Big East rivalries.”

Jordano said that although expectations for the next few years are steep, he realizes his young group of players have a long way to go before competing for conference and national championships.

“It’s one of those things where you can’t teach experience,” Jordano said. “You have to live it.”