USF Baseball Sweeps Seton Hall

TAMPA- Flashback to the 2012-2013 season, when USF Baseball was ranked 20th in the country with a 32-17 record. The team had only lost one Big East game in over a month, and was well on their way to receiving an at-large bid to a regional.

With seven games left in the season, USF started a three-game series on the road at Seton Hall. All they had to do was not get swept by the Pirates in order to keep pace, but ended up losing all three games 3-2, 5-4 and 4-2.

The Bulls went on to win three out of the remaining four games, plus one more in the conference tournament to finish with 36 wins. They missed out on the postseason and haven't played Seton Hall since due to conference realignment. Things were very different when the two teams met this past weekend, with new conferences and the Bulls being under new leadership, and USF trying to wash away the memory of the two midweek losses to FSU while Seton Hall looked to get their season on track.

Friday night was an old fashioned pitchers duel, and ace Jimmy Herget remained perfect on the season. Herget (3-0) tossed eight shutout innings while striking out 12 in the Bulls 1-0 win. Tommy Peterson delivered the save with a perfect ninth. The only run came in the second inning on a balk by the Pirates' starter.

Saturday night saw the Bulls take Game 2 7-3. Seton Hall held a 1-0 lead until the fifth inning when Kyle Teaf drove in two runs with a single to left-center.

In the eighth, the Bulls erupted for five runs to extend their lead to 7-1. The big hit in the inning came when Austin Lueck crushed a three-run homer to left center for his second big fly of the season. Casey Mulholland earned his second win of the season, allowing just an unearned run over six innings. Mulholland (2-2) struck out seven and allowed just two hits.

Sunday the Bulls captured a 12-6 victory to complete the sweep over the Pirates. So far this season for USF the pitching has had to overcome the offense, but the finale to this series was a different story. USF used two big innings, a six-run second and a five-run seventh, to create plenty of breathing room to cruise to victory.

"We came out this weekend and swept a good team, a team that won 39 games last year that will probably win the Big East this year," Head Coach Mark Kingston said. "I think it says a lot about us that we had a tough start to the week but we finished really, really strong."

USF takes its 9-6-1 record on the road Wednesday for a midweek game against Bethune Cookman in Daytona. First pitch is set for 6:00. The team then returns home this weekend to face FAMU.