“Despite the good weather, the University of Akron baseball team was unable to over come the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. The 5-4 loss on Tuesday brings the Zips to a 14-13 record for the year, but there were plenty of bright spots for the Zips during the game.”
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Despite the good weather, the University of Akron baseball team was unable to over come the University of Pittsburgh Panthers.

The 5-4 loss on Tuesday brings the Zips to a 14-13 record for the year, but there were plenty of bright spots for the Zips during the game.

Pitcher Zach Yike went up against Panther pitcher Alex Caravella, which proved to be nothing short of a pitchers duel.

Yike quickly found himself in trouble with the bases loaded in the first inning. He was able to get himself out of the jam thanks to a double play and grew more comfortable with each inning.

The Panthers’ Caravella quickly showed his dominance on the mound but lost his command in the fourth inning. His mistake was giving senior Kyle Hallett fastballs, which was exactly what he was looking for. The fastballs ended up costing Pittsburgh the early lead as Hallet took the pitch and turned it into a two-run homerun.

My morale was kind of low, Hallett said. I was just coming off a really bad weekend and I really wanted to get back to being consistent and seeing the ball a little better.

Hallett went 0-8 last weekend against Toledo.

The two-run homerun off of Caravella seemed to be an anomaly, as they were the only homeruns for the entire game.

All the guys were taking good swings, they were just getting themselves out, Hallett said. On a day like today when it’s really windy you just have to make sure you stay on top of the ball.

But the lead from Hallett’s homerun didn’t last long as Yike appeared to loose his feet, loading the bases in the sixth inning and allowing the Panthers to take a 3-2 lead.

Hallett came through again for the Zips in the clutch with a double, allowing Brian Kordal to score easily from third to tie the game. He continued his productive day helping the Zips take the lead stealing home on a wild pitch.

The lead was not kept for long as the Panthers came back and tied the game at 4-4 ending Yike’s day.

Zach did what we needed him to do, he gave us a chance to win, head coach Pat Bangtson said. He commanded the zone for the most part and third time through the order they figured him out a little bit.

Scott Foster came on in relief and gave up a run allowing the panthers to take the lead and eventually win the game 5-4.

When you play a good team…you have to do the little things right, Bangtson said. I just told the guys we missed a couple of signs, we didn’t hit with guys in scoring position and we had a couple of key walks. Those show up huge in a one run ballgame.

Bangtson stated that they felt lucky to be in the game 5-4 as they didn’t make key plays when they needed to.

I Felt like we swung the bats better overall but our clutch hitting wasn’t very good, Bangtson said.

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