UConn head coach Jim Penders earned his 800th career win as UConn (27-22) salvaged its series against East Tennessee State University (29-16) with a 4-3 win on Sunday at Elliot Ballpark.
For the second day in a row, Jackson Marshall came up to the plate with the Huskies trailing and the bases juiced. This time, he didn’t miss his pitch. The star first baseman smacked a sixth inning grand slam to left field to overcome a two-run deficit with one swing. The slam was Marshall’s second of the season and kept
UConn from being swept at home for the first time in the history of Elliot Ballpark.
That game-changing long ball was set up after the Huskies got three straight runners on against starter Cooper Jones to open the inning. Chase Taylor led off the inning with a walk before Chris Cancel singled into left on the first pitch of his at bat. Cam Righi picked up hard-earned full count walk after getting ahead 3-0 loaded the bases.
The rough start of the inning led to Thomas Costarelli entering the game in relief for ETSU. Marshall greeted him by sending his first pitch over the wall. Cody Carwile eventually had to come in to stop the bleeding as the Bucs were forced to burn two bullpen arms in the same inning.
While Marshall’s grand slam pushed across the Huskies’ only four runs on the day, the pitching staff made sure that would be enough for the victory.
UConn starter Oliver Pudvar turned in his fourth-straight quality start. Though he allowed his first earned run in 23.1 innings in the first — a stretch dating back to the end of his start against Creighton on April 4 — Pudvar settled in after allowing a pair of homers in the early innings.
Henry Ferguson, the second batter of the contest, lifted Pudvar’s sixth pitch the opposite way for a solo homer over the right field wall. That made it the third straight day in which the shortstop went yard against UConn, giving him a long ball in each game of the series.
Joey Little followed up Ferguson’s home run with one of his own an inning later to lead off the second, barely clearing the right field wall and a jumping Nater Wachter to give the Bucs a 2-0 lead.
After that, Pudvar settled down and took control. From that point until the seventh, the redshirt junior gave up only two more hits and allowed just two runners to reach second.
The wheels began to fall off for Pudvar in the seventh after an Axel Melendez leadoff double and a RBI single back up the middle off the bat of Ty Galuski. Still, the left hander finished strong with one final out before Evan Hamberger and Greg Shaw III combined to close the door on the Bucs.
Hamberger, typically a one- or two-out lefty specialist out of the bullpen, pitched a full inning for the first time this season and struck out a pair of batters. Shaw made it interesting by giving up a two-out single to Gabe Juarez in the ninth, but earned his second save of the season and first since March by getting Ian Guanzon to ground out and end it.
On the day, the Huskies picked up just three knocks but made two of them count for runs. Wachter also had a lead off single in the second that didn’t amount to anything after three straight outs to follow it. Wachter also swiped a bag in the sixth following Marshall’s big swing.
Before that swing, Marshall extended his on-base streak to 38 games in the first on a five pitch walk.
After taking the week off for finals, the Huskies will battle a different group of Pirates when they travel back to New Jersey for the second time in two weeks to take on Seton Hall (14-25, 2-13 Big East). With the Pirates struggling immensely in Big East play to this point, it’ll be a great opportunity for UConn to make headway in the conference standings. The Huskies currently sits a game back of St. John’s (26-21, 11-4 Big East) and Creighton (26-19, 11-4 Big East) for first place at 10-5 in the conference.
This will be the penultimate Big East series for the Huskies, who will host Villanova (16-26, 3-12 Big East) at Elliot Ballpark for a three-game set to close out the regular season. UConn is 17-3 over its last 20 contests against the Pirates.
Game one on Friday is scheduled for 4 p.m. at Mike Sheppard, Sr. Stadium at Owen T. Carroll Field. Saturday’s game will start at 1 p.m., while first pitch Sunday is set for noon. All three contests will stream live on ESPN+.
