Pitt splits doubleheader with Boston College after landing berth in ACC Tournament
May 9—Pitt needed only one victory to nail down its second ACC Tournament berth since joining the league in 2014, but ended up with two in its weekend series against Boston College at Charles L. Cost Field.
After securing the berth with a 4-1 victory Friday, the Panthers (22-13, 16-11) split a doubleheader Saturday. Pitt won the first game, 4-3, and lost the second, 6-2. The series victory was Pitt's record sixth of the season in the conference for third-year coach Mike Bell.
In the first game of the doubleheader, Pitt scored twice in the eighth inning to erase a 3-2 deficit. When Chase Smith retired the side in the ninth to pick up his first save of the season, Pitt had its fourth victory when trailing after seven innings.
Bryce Hulett led off the eighth with a double and advanced to third base on a groundout by Brock Franks. Jordan Anderson's sacrifice bunt tied the score and Sky Duff, who had five hits for the day, knocked in the game-winning run with a two-out double to left field.
Pitt scored single runs in the third and fourth. First, Duff doubled down the left field line, advanced to third base on Nico Popa's single to right-center and scored on an RBI-groundout by Kyle Hess. After Boston College (20-25, 9-21) took a 2-1 lead, David Yanni tied the game in the bottom of the fourth with his team-leading 11th home run and the 27th of his career, moving him ahead of P.J. Hiser (2002-04) for seventh-most in program history.
Starting and winning pitcher Matt Gilbertson (6-3) worked eight innings, allowing eight hits and three walks and striking out three. He has gone at least five innings in each of his 14 career starts.
Smith's save was the eighth of his career, tying J.R. Leonardi (2010-14), Tanner Wilt (2012-13) and Mike Rohrbach (1995-96) for fourth-most in program history.
Billy Corcoran started the second game and pitched four innings with one earned run, five hits, one walk and one strikeout. Chris Gomez threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief with two strikeouts, two walks and one hit.
Yanni also moved into a tie for fourth place in career doubles (47) with Brad Rhea (1999-02) and career RBIs (143) with Joe Leonard (2008-10) and 10th-place for career runs (141) with Jim Negrych (2004-06).
Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry by email at jdipaola@triblive.com or via Twitter .
