Weekend Preview: Baseball season-opener highlights action-filled weekend

Baseball

Pitt’s baseball team will play its first games of the new season this weekend, as it travels to Pelicans Ballpark in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to play Coastal Carolina today, Saturday and Sunday. The games will take place at 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and noon, respectively.

Pitt is led by senior outfielder Casey Roche, who was named a First-Team preseason All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Roche, a Third-Team NCBWA All-American last season, is coming off a 2013 campaign in which he was named a First-Team All-Big East selection after hitting a team-best .339 with nine homers and a Big East-leading 65 RBIs. 

The Panthers won a school-record 42 games last year.

Wrestling

Pitt’s sixth-ranked wrestling team will hit the mats twice this weekend with hopes of continuing to climb up the ranks. The team will wrestle tonight at 7 p.m. against Edinboro and Saturday at 7 p.m. versus Michigan. Both events will be held at the Fitzgerald Field House.

Last Friday, the Panthers increased their record to 12-1 and 5-0 in the ACC with a 19-14 victory over 16th-ranked Virginia Tech. With the win, Pitt clinched a share of the ACC regular-season championship, the first ACC title in any sport for the University.

Both teams will challenge the Panthers’ hot streak, as Edinboro enters ranked 14th with an 8-3 record while eighth-ranked Michigan sports a 10-4 record.

Gymnastics

Coming off a close 195.225-194.900 loss, Pitt’s gymnastics team will hope to get back to its winning ways against West Virginia in Morgantown at 6 p.m.

In their last meet, the Panthers edged out George Washington and Towson, but fell to Maryland on the last event — the uneven bars.

Senior Katie O’Rourke was a standout in the latest meet, winning the floor exercise title with a season-best score of 9.90 and finishing third on the balance beam with a 9.825 mark. For her efforts, O’Rourke was named the East Atlantic Gymnastics League’s Specialist of the Week. Her floor title marks her fourth event title of the season.

Women’s Basketball

Coming off an 86-50 defeat to North Carolina yesterday, Pitt’s women’s basketball team will hope to end its four-game losing streak as it faces Clemson at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Peterson Events Center.

Clemson is 11-15 on the year, with one of those victories coming against the Panthers by a score of 77-67 on Jan. 12. For the game, fans are invited to “pink” the Petersen Events Center to promote breast-cancer awareness. The contest also marks Senior Day for the Panthers, who will honor forward Asia Logan and guard Ashlee Anderson.

Softball

The Panthers will have a full slate of games on their hands this weekend, as they continue nonconference play next weekend when they travel to Tampa, Fla., to take part in the USF Tournament. Pitt will face two more nationally ranked teams when it opposes No. 1 Tennessee and No. 23 South Florida.

Today, Pitt will play Illinois at 11:15 a.m., then Tennessee at 6:15 p.m. On Saturday, the Panthers will play Wright State at 9 a.m. and South Florida at 1:45 p.m. in the afternoon. Finally, Pitt will finish off their games on Sunday against Binghamton at 9 a.m.

In its last game, Pitt dropped a 2-1 decision to No. 2 Oklahoma, falling to 3-2 on the year.

Tennis

Hoping to extend its record to 3-0, Pitt tennis will oppose Robert Morris on Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Alpha Tennis Center in Pittsburgh.

In their last contest, the Panthers defeated Youngstown State 5-2 last Friday.

“It was important to start the season strong,” head coach Alex Santos said after the contest. “We have options in doubles and it’s a great day when you’re able to win three of the doubles matches. In singles, we were able to win at five and six pretty fast and that gave us a lot of momentum to close the door.”