Fourth seed Seton Hall fell short against first seed Creighton in the first round of the Big East Baseball Tournament by a score of 10-9 on Thursday afternoon.
The Pirates dropped an 8-4 lead heading into the eighth inning following a near hour long delay due to lightning. The Bluejays put three runs past Seton Hall in the bottom of the eighth before Jared Wegner scored the winning run on an error by Matt Toke at first base on a grounder by Will Hanafan. The loss comes just over month since the two teams’ regular season meeting in which Creighton swept all three games at Richmond County Bank Ballpark.
Trailing 2-1 at the top of the second inning, the Pirates plated three runs on four hits. Steve Grober then hit a triple down to left field to clear the bases. Despite Chris Villa’s sacrifice fly to put The Hall up 4-2, the Bluejays bounced back in the bottom of the inning, scoring two runs with two outs to tie the game at four a piece.
In the fourth inning, Grober drove in his third run of the game with a single to center field to put Seton Hall back on top 5-4. Toke provided some insurance points with his opposite field two-run home run to bring himself and Grober home and boost the Pirates’ lead to 7-4. Christian Del Castillo’s double in the sixth inning brought in Villa for another run in the Pirates’ favor to extend their lead over Creighton to 6-4.
David Vilches and Parker each hit home runs in the eighth inning to initiate the Bluejays’ eventual comeback victory, cutting Seton Hall’s lead to 8-7 at the time. Despite scoring their ninth run of the game, Seton Hall just could not tighten up defensively to outlast Creighton’s late rally. Unfortunately for the Pirates, this was the third time this season they lost despite holding a lead of at least four runs at any time during the game.
Seton Hall will now play the loser of the matchup between second seed Xavier and third seed St. John’s on Friday, May 24 at 2:30 pm.
Justin Sousa can be reached at justin.sousa@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @JustinSousa99.
