No. 10 Virginia Falls in Series Opener at Pitt on Friday

PITTSBURGH – The No. 10 Virginia baseball team (29-14, 12-10 ACC) dropped a back-and-forth affair on Friday night (April 25) to the Pitt Panthers (26-14, 8-11 ACC) 7-5 at Charles L. Cost Field.

 

In a ballgame that saw five different lead changes, the homestanding Panthers scored the final three runs of the contest in the bottom of the eighth to prevail.

 

UVA starter Henry Zatkowski was dealt a no-decision after surrendering four earned runs in the seven-plus innings of work with nine strikeouts. Lucas Hartman was tagged with his first loss of the season for allowing the two go-ahead runs in the eighth.

 

Zach Jackson led all Cavalier batters with a 3-for-5 day, while the Virginia trio of Sam Harris, Joe Tiroly and Jake Weatherspoon each had two base hits.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• After a scoreless opening frame, RJ Holmes got UVA on the board first when the freshman singled home Kyle Johnson.
• Pitt responded in the home half of the second by taking the lead on a two-run home run from Sebastian Pisacreta.
• Noah Murray opened the top of the third with a leadoff triple off the wall in left field and later scored to tie the game at 2-2 on a Harrison Didawick RBI base knock through the right side.
• Virginia regained the lead in the fifth when Sam Harris poked a single back through the box to score Antiono Perrotta from second.
• An inning later, Jackson crushed a 1-2 pitch over the left field wall to put the Cavaliers up 4-2. The leadoff homer was the sophomore’s sixth long ball of the season.
• In the home half of the sixth, Pitt tied the game at 4-4 with a solo home run and an RBI single.
• Tiroly opened the top of the seventh with a moonshot over the wall in left field that put the Cavaliers back in front 5-4. The homer was the Pennsylvania native’s eighth of the year.
• Pitt plated three runs in the bottom of the eighth, including a two-run home run off the bat of Carter Dierdorf that proved to be the game-winner.
• Virginia loaded the bases in top of the ninth with one out before a hard-hit liner to third and a strikeout delivered the series opener to Pitt.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• With the loss, UVA drops to 25-2 on the year when leading after the seventh inning and 19-4 when scoring first.
• Seven of the nine starters in the Virginia lineup recorded a base knock on Friday night.
• With the two home runs on Friday, Virginia has hit 76 on the year as a team to pass the 2022 squad for the third-most home runs in a season all-time.
• Joe Tiroly extended this reached base streak to 15 games with his single in the fifth inning.
• Eric Becker and AJ Gracia missed their third-straight game on Friday and are considered day-to-day with upper-body injuries. UVA is 2-1 in their absence.

FROM COACH CHRIS POLLARD:

"They made three great plays on us with runners in scoring position. They took a home run away from Kyle Johnson that would have been a three-run home run. They took a hit away from RJ Holmes with runners at second and third. Then they took two or three runs off the board by just being in the right position on Kyle’s ball. That is a little bit of our sport. It is really three things. Henry pitched an incredible ballgame. Zatkowski was great for us and they took some runs away from us with some great defensive plays and we had one or two defensive plays that we didn’t make that we needed to.”

UP NEXT

No. 10 Virginia will look to even the series in the middle game of the three-game series on Saturday (April 25). The Cavaliers will have lefty Kyle Johnson (0-1) on the bump for a 3 p.m. contest that will be carried on ACCNX and WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM).