May 14, 2005

The Notre Dame baseball team’s doubleheader at Pittsburgh scheduled for Saturday, May 14, has been rained out and shifted to Sunday (noon start). The third game of the series now will be played on Monday at noon.

Notre Dame’s probable pitching rotation remains sophomore righthander Dan Kapala in the 7-inning game-1, followed by junior lefthander Tom Thornton in game-2 (the starter for game-3 is TBA).

The Irish are looking to solidify their standing in the race for spots in the four-team BIG EAST Tournament. Current frontrunner St. John’s (16-4/.800) and second-place Boston College (15-7/.682) both have byes from conference play this week while Notre Dame (10-7-1/.583) remains in 3rd place, followed by Pittsburgh (10-9/.526), Rutgers (9-9), Connecticut (8-9/.471), West Virginia (9-11/.650), Villanova (7-12-1/.375), Georgetown (6-13/.316) and Seton Hall (5-14/.263).

This weekend’s other series include Rutgers at Georgetown, UConn at Seton Hall and West Virginia at Villanova (WVU won the series opener on Friday, 1-0).

Notre Dame still could finish ahead of BC but the Irish have clinched a higher finish over just one team (SHU) heading into the final two weekends of the season. Notre Dame is close to clinching a higher finish than GU, VU and WVU but has more work to do in order to finish ahead of the other three teams (Pitt, RU and UConn).

Check back to und.com later tonight for updated ND baseball gamenotes, including a look at today’s BIG EAST results and a breakdown of the race for the postseason spots.