Pirates Conclude Season With 4-2 Loss To Xavier

Friday, May 28

Mason, Ohio

10 p.m.

Seton Hall University

23-25

Xavier

26-25

Xavier

Seton Hall

Photo by: Rooted Creative

5/29/2021 1:54:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

Festa's strong start wasn't enough to extend Seton Hall's stay at the BIG EAST Championship

MASON, Ohio – Junior David Festa (Verona, N.J.) struck out seven batters in 7.1 innings of work and three players tallied multi-hit games in the Seton Hall baseball team's 4-2 loss to Xavier in an elimination game at the 2021 BIG EAST Championship Presented by Jeep.

The game was originally scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon but it didn't start until 10:04 p.m. due to poor weather. The game ended after 1 a.m. Saturday morning.

Senior Casey Dana (Montgomery, N.Y.), graduate student Connor Hood (Shrewsbury, Pa.) and junior Alex Clyde (Old Tappan, N.J.) each had two hits with Dana and Hood tallying RBIs.

After Festa worked a 1-2-3 top of the first inning, sophomore Jonathan Luders (Lynnfield, Mass.) dropped a one-out base hit into right field and he moved to second on a single by Dana. With two outs, Hood took an outside pitch the opposite way into right field and it was enough to score Luders from second, giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead.

With runners on the corners and two outs in the top of the second, Festa got the final batter to swing and miss on a 2-2 pitch to end the frame. Festa then retired the next six Xavier batters in order before running into some trouble in the top of the fifth. The Pirates had two outs in the inning but the Musketeers took a 2-1 lead on a two-run triple.

Festa settled down and retired six of the next seven batters in the sixth and seventh innings. The Pirates loaded the bases in the home half of the seventh and they had Dana at the plate. On the first pitch, he chopped a soft grounder just in front of the pitcher who fielded it and tossed it home but the throw was too late as Clyde scored from third. Dana earned the fielder's choice RBI and it tied the score at 2-2.

The next batter was graduate student Matt Toke (Three Bridges, N.J.) who hit a ground ball deep in the hole to the second baseman who fielded it and tossed it to second for the first out but Xavier was unable to complete the double play at first. The Musketeers asked for a video review of Dana's slide going into second base saying that he interfered with the shortstop throwing to first base. After review, the umpires ruled that Dana had interfered on the slide and it ended the Seton Hall threat.

Xavier used the momentum of the overturned call to take the lead on a go-ahead RBI single. With Xavier leading 3-2, sophomore Chris Shine (South Plainfield, N.J.) retired the final batter of the inning with the bases loaded to end the threat. Despite putting two runners on in the eighth, the Pirates couldn't draw the score even and the Musketeers tacked on another run in the top of the ninth that produced the final score of 4-2.