UConn ousted from Big East baseball tourney

A pair of wild pitches led to two South Florida runs in the seventh inning as rallied for a 2-1 victory over UConn on Saturday night in Clearwater, Fla., completing a two-game sweep and eliminated the Huskies from the Big East baseball tournament.

South Florida (38-21), which forced a second game with a 1-0 win over UConn earlier in the day, will play St. John's for the Big East title today at noon.

The Huskies, who advanced all the way to the NCAA tournament Super Regionals a year ago, finish 31-27.

UConn took a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning when Tim Martin lined a two-out double off the wall and right and scored on a base hit by LJ Mazzilli.

Dan Feehan, who relieved starter Carson Cross with two outs in the sixth, fell apart in the seventh. A walk, base hit and balk put runners on second and third before Feehan uncorked two wild pitches.

Mazzilli, who had eight hits in the tournament, went 2-for-4.

In the first game, pitcher Brian Ward allowed just one hit in five innings - a solo homer to Jimmy Fallas in the fourth - and that was all the Bulls needed.

David Mahoney, a redshirt freshman out of Bacon Academy, pitched a scoreless ninth for the Huskies, who couldn't rally in the bottom of the inning and finished with just three hits. Mahoney finished the year 1-0 with a 1.89 earned run average in 10 appearances.

- Day Staff Reports