Notre Dame baseball loses on a walk-off

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Villanova got a walk-off RBI single from Paul Rambaud in the bottom of the 9th inning to beat Notre Dame, 10-9. The Wildcats improved to 27-20 overall and 9-10 in the Big East, while the Irish dropped to 23-22 and 9-10.

Image from und.com

Notre Dame made a great comeback in the 9th inning, tying the ball game 9-9. With 2 outs and 2 strikes, pinch hitter Blaise Lezynski hit a double to tie the dramatic game up.

The game wasn’t tied for long, because on the bottom of the same inning (which happend to be the 9th), Villanova answered. After a walk and a single, Paul Rambaud hit a single down the left field line to plate the winning run.

RHP Matt Ternowchek (ND) gave up the RBI single in the 9th, but he wasn’t given the loss. After 0.2 innings of work in the 9th, LHP Joe Spano (ND) was handed the loss because he left after he had given up the walk to start the rally. Spano is now 0-4 on the season.

Stephen Ostapeck (NOVA) earned the victory and improved to 4-2. He allowed 1 earned run on 2 hits in 0.2 innings of work.

Defense killed the Irish last night. 7 of the 10 runs given up in the game reached base on an error, hit basemen, or walk. 5 total errors led to 6 unearned runs for Notre Dame. They won’t stand a chance in the conference1 tournament if they play bad defense, it simply just can’t happen.

Here’s the current standings of the Big East (before Saturday games).

	BIG EAST	Pct	Overall	Pct
St. John’s	14 – 5	.737	29 – 17 – 0	.630
USF	13 – 6	.684	30 – 16 – 0	.652
Louisville	12 – 6	.667	31 – 14 – 0	.689
Connecticut	12 – 6	.667	24 – 20 – 0	.545
Seton Hall	12 – 7	.632	27 – 19 – 0	.587
Rutgers	11 – 7	.611	26 – 18 – 0	.591
Villanova	9 – 10	.474	27 – 20 – 0	.574
Notre Dame	9 – 10	.474	23 – 22 – 0	.511
Pittsburgh	6 – 12	.333	22 – 21 – 0	.512
Georgetown	6 – 13	.316	20 – 25 – 0	.444
West Virginia	5 – 13	.278	17 – 27 – 0	.386
Cincinnati	2 – 16	.111	14 – 32 – 0