The Seton Hall Pirates baseball team split its doubleheader with Virginia over the weekend, winning the first game by a final of 3-0 and losing the second, 4-0. The series’ third game, set for Sunday morning, was cancelled due to rain.
Noah Thompson had a career day in the first game, holding Virginia scoreless through 8.1 innings while only giving up two hits, walking one batter, and striking out six.
A complete team effort helped Thompson’s cause. Eight of nine Pirates in the starting lineup reached base and the Pirates collected 11 hits on the day, getting two hits apiece from familiar contributors Connor Hood, Sebastiano Santorelli, Tyler-Shedler McAvoy, and Matt Toke.
Seton Hall jumped on Virginia early. In the top of the first, Shedler-McAvoy led off with a single and used his speed to advance to third on a single by Santorelli. Shedler-McAvoy scored the game’s first run when Casey Dana grounded into a double-play.
The lead ballooned for the Pirates in the top of the fourth. Santorelli singled and Dana drew a walk, setting up and RBI single by Toke and a sacrifice fly by freshman Alex Clyde that gave the Pirates a 3-0 lead, which was more than enough run support with the way Thompson was pitching.
The only threat that Virginia posed was the catalyst for Thompson’s exit. After hitting Virginia’s Nic Kent with a pitch, Thompson was pulled for Ryan McLinskey, who gave up a hit and struck out a batter before giving way to Corey Sawyer. Sawyer induced the final out of the game on a fly ball to finish a near-flawless game for the Pirates.
In the second game, however, things did not go as smooth for Seton Hall.
Cole Patten started the game on the mound, which went rough in the beginning. Three of the first four batters he faced got a hit, which resulted in one run for Virginia. Patten bounced back, though, and he struck out the next two batters to end the first inning.
Seton Hall could not get much going on the offensive side during the top of the second, and the bottom half was not much better. The leadoff batter for the inning for Virginia hit a home run, and then, the next batter reach on an error. After a sacrifice bunt and a walk, Patten was taken out after less than two innings. The two runners that were left on base by Patten scored during the inning to make the score 4-0.
The Pirates’ pitching did a fine job of shutting down Virginia’s bats the rest of the game, but the Seton Hall offense could not get much going to help out. In the top of the fourth inning, the Pirates had a prime scoring opportunity with two runners in scoring position, but Shedler-McAvoy grounded out to second base to end the inning. That would be the last time Seton Hall got to third base for the game.
The team returns to action on March 5 against NJIT. Fist pitch is 4 p.m.
Matthew Collins can be reached at matthew.collins@student.shu.edu and Joseph Ippolito can be reached at joseph.ippolito@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @joeippy.
