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MASON, Ohio – The Butler Bulldog baseball team advanced to the winner's bracket of the 2018 BIG EAST Championship Tournament by recording a 2-1 victory over the Seton Hall Pirates. Playing as the No. 3 seed, Butler scored one run in the first inning and one run in the 13th inning to claim their first postseason win since 2009.
The two evenly matched team were deadlocked at 1-1 heading into the 13th inning. Each starter was great for their respective club and the bullpen was just as impressive. BU freshman
James Gargano shook up the game by leading off the 13th with a single through the left side. A sac bunt from lead-off man
Zach Jarosz would move Gargano into scoring position and an RBI single from senior
Michael Hartnagel would lift BU to victory 2-1.
Butler improved to 34-18 on the year with the win, tying the program record for most wins in a single-season. They are now 11-2 on the year when playing at a neutral site and 22-8 when they score the first run of the game.
The Bulldogs won for the first time this season when scoring less than three runs in a game. An excellent start from
Ryan Pepiot kept the low-scoring game moving right along as the sophomore right hander struck out 10 Pirates in 7.1 innings of action. Pepiot has now reached 10-plus strikeouts in four of his last five starts. The win would belong to
Josh Walker (4-2) and the save would be picked up by
Jack Pilcher who tied the BU single-season save record with his 10th of the year.
Walker put in a gutsy performance after taking the game ball from Pepiot. The senior reliever tossed 4.2 innings of high-pressure baseball. He struck out two and only allowed one hit. Pilcher put two men on in his outing, but a pair of big strikeouts in crunch time would advance Butler in the tournament.
Four of Butler's seven hits belonged to freshmen on Thursday night. Gargano and
Andy Bennett each tallied two hits for the 'Dawgs. Hartnagel,
Gehrig Parker and
Zach Jarosz all found the hit column for BU who ended the game with one more hit than Seton Hall.
The game got off to a great start as Jarosz would single back up the middle of the diamond.
Tyler Houston would draw a walk in his first at-bat moving Jarosz to second and a deep fly out from Parker allowed Jarosz to tag up and reach third base.
Scoring opened up for BU on a Seton Hall error. Hartnagel hit a ball at the Pirate shortstop that would tip off his glove and dribble into left field. Jarosz scored off the Hartnagel at-bat, but the lead would vanish in the bottom half of the inning off a solo homer from Al Molina.
Seton Hall put two men into scoring position in the third inning, but would not come up with a timely hit to take a lead. Pepiot would really dial in after the third to strike out the side in the fourth. The fifth was more of the same with Pepiot striking out the first two batters of that inning. SHU tried to get on with a bunt after the fifth-straight strikeout, but the BU defense was ready for the attempt and put away Dadona.
The biggest threat against Butler popped up in the seventh inning when Seton Hall would load the bases with no outs. Bennett got the first out for Pepiot by fielding a ground ball and getting the runner at home. A double play would follow to get Butler out of trouble. Hartnagel scooped up a ground ball and took two big steps to touch the bag at second. The throw to first base was off, but the call on the field was interference which would end the inning.
Neither team would record a hit after that call until the bottom of the 12th inning. Toke would lead off with a base hit up the middle and a pinch-runner would enter the game to get some more speed on the base paths. The Butler defense held strong as the runner was caught stealing on an awesome throw from Hewitt to Jarosz. Gargano would ignite the bats the next inning for Butler and Pilcher would handle business in the 13th to wrap up the win.
Butler will now face the top-seed St. John's Red Storm on Friday, May 25. The game will stream live on BEDN at 6:30 PM
