Baseball: Loss to Mountaineers ends season for Panthers

For the second time in as many days, the Pitt baseball team played a shortened game after… For the second time in as many days, the Pitt baseball team played a shortened game after falling behind by more than 10 runs.

Yesterday, the Panthers lost 12-2 against South Florida in eight innings in their first game of the Big East tournament. Earlier today, Pitt only made it seven innings against West Virginia before the game was called after the Mountaineers built up a 12-run lead. In the tournament, games are called if one team is up by 10 or more runs after seven innings, except for the championship game.

The 20-8 victory for West Virginia gave the Mountaineers the record for most runs in a tournament game. The previous mark was 18 runs by Seton Hall in the 1987 tournament.

The loss knocks the Panthers out of the Big East tournament, and ends their season. The Panthers finished the year 28-21 and 13-13 in Big East action.

After rain pushed the game back from last night to this afternoon, Pitt took a lead in the bottom of the first inning. After West Virginia scored two runs to start the game, a three-run Chris Sedon home run put Pitt on top.

The homer is Sedon’s 22nd of the season, and sets a record for most home runs in a single season by a Pitt player. Sedon tied P.J. Hiser’s 2004 total with a home run in the first inning of yesterday’s game.

Pitt added another run in the second inning after a Morgan Kielty single scored Cory Brownsten. But Pitt starting pitcher Corey Baker couldn’t hold onto the lead.

The Mountaineers scored three runs on only two hits in the top of the third to take a 5-4 lead, and added two more to their total in the fourth inning.

Pitt showed resiliency, though, scoring four runs in the bottom of the fourth to take an 8-7 lead. Another Kielty RBI single scored the first run, a walk to Kevan Smith with the bases loaded scored the second run and the last two came home when Joe Leonard grounded to third, but Dan DiBartolomeo misplayed the ball, allowing it to go to left field.

Baker pitched to three batters in the fifth inning, giving up singles to two of them, before he was replaced with Nathan Hood. After getting the first batter to fly out, Hood hit the second batter to load the bases and then gave up a two-run single to Jedd Gyorko. West Virginia took a 9-8 lead and didn’t relinquish it the rest of the game.

The Mountaineers added six runs in the sixth and five runs in the seventh to give them 20 while holding Pitt scoreless the last three innings of the game.

The defense didn’t help out the pitching staff, committing three errors that led to four unearned runs. Baker finished the day pitching 4.1 innings, giving up nine runs, only six earned, on nine hits while striking out two and walking one. In one inning of relief, Hood gave up five runs, four earned, on three hits. In his 1.1 innings of work, Ricky Breymier also gave up five runs, and Josh Smith closed out the game giving up one run on three hits in one-third of an inning.

Kielty and Frank Mercurio were the only Panthers with more than one hit, both recording two on the afternoon.

For West Virginia, Bill Gross threw 141 pitches, earning the complete game victory. Austin Markel had four hits, including two triples and a home run. He also had six RBIs, which is another tournament record.