The Georgetown University baseball team carried its momentum from a sweep of conference rival Villanova (8-21, 0-6 Big East) into this past weekend’s series against Seton Hall, riding excellent pitching to take two of three games from the Pirates. 

The Hoyas (22-9, 5-1 Big East) hosted the Pirates (17-15, 1-2 Big East) at their new home, Capital One Park, in Tysons, Va. The game followed a five-day Hoya hiatus, as their midweek game against Coppin State (6-19, 5-10 Northeast) was postponed due to inclement weather. 

First-year southpaw Marcello Mastroianni toed the slab for the Hoyas in game one. He held Seton Hall’s bats at bay, pitching 5 scoreless innings with 4 strikeouts, while allowing 4 hits and 3 walks. The performance lowered his season ERA to 3.47. Although Mastroianni went the required distance to qualify for his fifth win of the season, Seton Hall starter Daniel Frontera matched him with 6 scoreless innings.

The Hoya offense finally broke through in the seventh, jumping on the first two Pirate relievers. Senior shortstop Michael Eze led off with a single, prompting Seton Hall to pull righty Jayson Torres in favor of lefty Nate Espelin. Georgetown senior outfielder Jake Hyde greeted Espelin with a double down the left field line, moving Eze to third, before senior first-baseman Christian Ficca drove in both with a single to center to put the Hoyas up 2-0.

Seton Hall allowed Espelin to face the Hoyas’ lefty-hitting junior catcher Owen Carapellotti, recording a flyout. With right-handed graduate third baseman Joe Hollerbach stepping up, the Pirates turned to righty Michael Gillen. Hollerbach roped a double to right field, scoring Ficca and extending the Hoya lead to 3. 

The bullpen combination of graduate right-hander Cody Jensen and sophomore righty Andrew Citron was lights-out, shutting down the Seton Hall lineup the rest of the way. They combined for 4 scoreless innings, allowing 2 hits, 1 walk and striking out 3. Citron recorded his third win of the season, and the 3-0 win was the second shutout of the season for the Hoyas.

Junior left-handed pitcher Andrew Williams got the start in game two, building on top of what has been a successful season thus far. He threw 4.1 innings, allowing 1 unearned run on 2 hits, 4 walks and 5 strikeouts. Unfortunately, that run was all the Pirates needed to capture a game two 1-0 victory. 

The combined dominant relief efforts of graduate pitcher Jordan Yoder, sophomore pitcher Kai Leckszas and junior pitcher Marshall Whitmer kept the Hoyas within striking distance, even as Seton Hall righty Ryan Reich no-hit them for seven innings. The trio of relievers only allowed 2 hits while walking none and striking out 2 over 4 and 2/3 frames. 

With 2 outs in the ninth, graduate utility player Marco Castillo singled to break up Seton Hall’s no-hit bid. Throughout the game, Georgetown bats left 7 men on base, importantly striking out with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the seventh. The loss snapped Georgetown’s four-game conference win streak. 

Senior left-handed pitcher Everett Catlett got the ball in Sunday’s rubber match. He entered the game having given up just 1 earned run in his last 23.1 innings pitched, earning him three consecutive appearances on the Big East weekly honor roll. 

The towering southpaw dazzled, hurling 8 scoreless innings before handing the ball to sophomore pitcher Cody Bowker. Catlett allowed 3 hits and 2 walks, tallied 6 strikeouts and lowered his season ERA to 2.66, a mark good for second in the conference.

Catlett’s performance was especially important, as the Hoya offense failed to generate any run support through 8 innings. They managed to put a runner in scoring position in four separate innings before the ninth and all four times could not scratch across the go-ahead run. 

Bowker entered in the ninth, making his first appearance since a March 2 start against Fairleigh Dickinson (13-17, 9-5 Northeast), where he exited after just 1 and 2/3 innings. He allowed a leadoff single followed by a sacrifice bunt and a groundout; this brought up Seton Hall’s Aiden Robbins with a runner on third and 2 outs. 

Robbins was all over Bowker’s fastball, clobbering it to deep right-center field — but senior outfielder Andrew Bergeron never lost sight of it, tracking the shot all the way to the wall and making a leaping grab to preserve the shutout.

In the bottom of the ninth, Hollerbach was hit by a pitch to put the leadoff runner on. Castillo bunted him over to second, and Bergeron was also hit by a pitch, putting two men on for first-year utility player Ashtin Gilio. Gilio struck out, but Eze became the third Hoya in the inning to be hit by a pitch to load the bases.

Pirate reliever Jay Allmer’s command issues forced Seton Hall to pull him, opting for Gillen to finish the inning. Hyde stepped up with a chance to walk it off, but he did not even have to swing the bat. 

Gillen’s 2-0 offering ran low and in by Hyde’s back foot, skipping off of the catcher’s glove and careening to the backstop. Graduate outfielder Kavi Caster, pinch-running for Hollerbach, dashed home to score the game’s only run, with the wild pitch sealing a 1-0 win for the Hoyas. 

Bowker was credited with his second win of the season. The shutout was the Hoyas’ second of the series and third of the season, wrapping up a weekend in which they did not allow a single earned run over 27 innings.

Head Coach Edwin Thompson recognized the incredible pitching performance and acknowledged the hard work put in by his staff, especially pitching coach George Capen and director of player development Maurice Bankston, to achieve the result.

“What an amazing performance from our pitching staff the entire weekend. To give up only one unearned run is unbelievable,” Thompson told Georgetown Athletics. “Coach Capen and Coach Bankston have been phenomenal.”

The Hoyas followed up the series win with a back-and-forth 13-12 victory against the University of Maryland (22-12, 4-5 Big Ten). Multi-homer games from Hyde and Carapellotti and a go-ahead blast by Ficca powered the Hoya offense over the Terps, avenging their two prior losses this season.

Georgetown then traveled to Towson, Md., to take on Towson University (8-23, 3-6 Coastal Athletic) in their second midweek matchup. They prevailed in 11 innings by a score of 8-4. This weekend, the Hoyas will face conference opponent Butler University (13-17, 1-2 Big East) in a three-game away set.