Baseball: Pitt eliminated from Big East tournament

Pitt’s Big East Championship hopes ended with a 12-2 loss to Louisville in the losers’… Pitt’s Big East Championship hopes ended with a 12-2 loss to Louisville in the losers’ bracket, and the senior-laden Panthers didn’t receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The Panthers ended the season at 33-23, the team’s best regular season in six years, before moving on to postseason play.

Pitt did win its first game of the tournament, defeating Louisville 7-2 in Clearwater, Fla.

Junior pitcher Matt Iannazzo threw a complete game to improve his record to 8-3 on the season, and senior sluggers Kevan Smith and David Chester both belted home runs as victory took the Panthers into the winners’ bracket.

“In tournament play, you have to do everything possible to stay out of the losers’ bracket,” head coach Joe Jordano said in an email. “We played a solid game against Louisville.”

The Panthers moved on for a matchup with the No. 2 seed and defending champion St. John’s. Despite the fact that the Red Storm had already swept a three-game series from Pitt earlier in the season, the Panthers entered their second game with confidence.

“Even though they swept us, we played them tough in those games, and we knew we could beat them if we played our best game,” senior Corey Baker, who took the mound for Pitt against St. John’s, said.

In a tight game throughout, the St. John’s offense scored one run in six different innings and held off an eighth-inning Pitt rally.

The Panthers almost tied the game then, after scoring runs off singles from Smith and Chester. But Smith was called out at the plate when he attempted to score on a wild pitch, ending the inning.

The Red Storm added an insurance run in the next inning, and the Panthers dropped the hard-fought 6-4 decision.

“Game 2 against St. John’s was a very tough loss,” Jordano said. “We really played hard. We made a couple of mistakes that cost us and two critical calls went against us. It just didn’t go our way.”

In the fifth inning, the Panthers failed to turn a double play, allowing the lead runner to advance to third and eventually score.

The loss dropped Pitt into the losers’ bracket, setting up another game with Louisville.

“We have a team full of seniors and knew this would be our last game if we lost,” senior outfielder Zach Duggan said. “It didn’t matter who we were playing, we wanted to leave everything on the field.”

In the second matchup between the two teams, Louisville’s offensive explosion proved too much for the Panthers’ defense, which has struggled at times this year.

The Cardinals struck early, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first.

The Panthers cut the lead in half in the top of the second, but Louisville pulled away with two runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

The Cardinals then sealed the victory with a six-run eighth inning, ending Pitt’s season with a 12-2 loss.

The loss ended the careers of the 11 seniors on Pitt’s roster. The seniors led the Panthers to three consecutive years with 30-plus wins and four appearances in the Big East Championships.

“We’ve done some really good things at Pitt, and I’m definitely proud of these four years,” Baker said. “Hopefully in the next couple years they can make the first NCAA Tournament for Pitt.”

Fellow senior Duggan said that Pitt has a winning program.

“I really like everything coach Jordano has done, and with the new field and new recruits, this program can continue to get better,” he said.