The Huskies head to the at-large pool.
UConn baseball’s Big East Tournament run ended in the final on Saturday, as Creighton took the title by a score of 7-4. Jim Penders’ team would have needed to win two games against the Bluejays to claim a tournament crown.
The Huskies left the bases loaded three times across the afternoon and stranded 12 runners overall. They worked six walks and were hit by two pitches, but had just seven hits, three of which were by Caleb Shpur.
In a sharp contrast to most of the other games this week, this one didn’t feature a ton of runs. However, it was hardly a pitchers’ duel.
Sam Hutchinson was on the mound for UConn and gave his team six outs, exiting the game after allowing a solo home run to Dakota Duffalo to begin the third. It was one of two hits on his ledger, as well as the only run. He struck out one and walked another. Despite the tidy line, it wasn’t the strongest outing, as he rolled a double-play ball to end both the first and second innings.
Shea Wendt, the Bluejays’ starter, did not allow a hit over his 3 1⁄3 innings of work, with six strikeouts. However, he walked two hitters and hit two more after retiring the side in order over his first two frames.
UConn didn’t get its first knock until Shpur leveled the game with a solo shot of his own with one down in the fifth, though it wasn’t without opportunities to get more across in the early going.
The Huskies took advantage of two free passes and a hit batter to load the bases with one out in the third. However, Shpur and Ryan Daniels went down on strikes to end the threat. The same combination again filled the bags in the next frame, this time with two down, but Matt Garbowski grounded out to second base.
Ian Cooke replaced Hutchinson and retired the first six hitters he faced, but the Huskies got into trouble in the fifth.
The first two Bluejays reached and Duffalo laid down the sacrifice bunt to get them into scoring position. Garbowski fielded the ball from behind the plate and opted to try and get the lead runner, but his throw was late, loading the bases.
Cooke then hit the nine-hitter, Kyle Hess, with two strikes, to give Creighton a 2-1 lead, which quickly turned to 3-1 after a sacrifice fly. He got the second out, but during Nolan Sailors’ at-bat, he suffered an apparent right leg injury and was forced to exit the game. Penders opted to play the matchup and brought in left-hander JT Caruso to face the left-handed Sailors. After working the count full, he got the ground ball he wanted, but Daniels failed to field it cleanly, re-loading the bases.
Caruso got behind Ben North, the next hitter, 2-0, and Penders came and got his man in favor of Greg Shaw III. He induced a ground ball and Rispoli was able to handle it, ending the frame there.
The Huskies tried to take some momentum, as Beau Root hit a solo home run in the sixth to bring his team to 3-2, but another chance was squandered in the seventh as the Huskies left the bases loaded.
Creighton added a run each in the sixth and seventh on sacrifice flies, but put the game out of reach in the eighth. Will MacLean doubled with one out and took third on a fly out to center field. Kyle Hess walked and stole second base to put two runners in scoring position for the top of the order. Hector Alejandro had two strikes on Tate Gillen, but he plated both with a double, making it 7-2.
Daniels got his team to within two with a home run in the ninth, but the game-tying run didn’t get closer than the on-deck circle.
UConn (38-21) is squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble and will need to wait for the NCAA Tournament Selection Show to find out whether it will make the field of 64 for the seventh consecutive time. The bracket is revealed on Monday at 12 p.m. on ESPN2.