May 22, 2004

The Notre Dame baseball team – not to be outdone by the Irish softball squad – currently is waiting out a rain delay at Eck Stadium, with the teams now looking to resume play at 4:15. Notre Dame had scored four runs in the bottom of sixth inning of Saturday’s nine-inning game to claim a 10-6 lead, with two outs and runners on first and third.

The game was halted at 1:55 p.m. due to lightning in the area and rain began to fall shortly after the tarp was placed on the field.

Per BIG EAST resumption-of-game policies, the game will resume at the exact point in which the game ended either Saturday afternoon/night or Sunday morning. If the game is unable to be resumed, it will be recorded as a 10-6 Notre Dame victory. If the game resumes and there is another delay without a resumption, the score will hold unless the home team (Notre Dame) is trailing and has not batted to close out the inning (a tie score would hold as long as the Hokies had not tied the score in the top of the final inning in which ND did not complete its turn at-bat).

Hopefully, the above scenarios will all be moot and the teams will resume play.

Notre Dame already has clinched a share of the BIG EAST regular-season title (a potential tie would result in ND and Pittsburgh both receiving first-place trophies and being declared co-champs, with the tie being broken only for tournament seeding).

In other action Saturday, Villanova beats Rutgers again (2-1) while Pittsburgh took game-1 from St. John’s (6-4) and Boston College defeated Seton Hall (12-5). Pitt and BC have joined Notre Dame in clinching three of the four BIG EAST Tournament spots while St. John’s (15-9) and Rutgers (13-10) remain in contention for the final spot. RU needs to beat VU on Sunday and have SJU lose the final two games vs. Pitt, which would vault the Knights past the Red Storm based on win pct. (14-10 ranks ahead of 15-11).