St. John's Remains Undefeated In BIG EAST Play At 9-0, Best League Start Since 2000
NEW YORK – With three weekend sweeps in a row, St. John’s is off to the best start in BIG EAST league play since Rutgers went 11-0 to start the season in 2000. The nationally ranked Red Storm swept Georgetown this weekend at home at Jack Kaiser Stadium. Seton Hall moved into second in the BIG EAST rankings with a series sweep at Butler and Creighton moved up to fourth as the Bluejays took two from Xavier on the road.
St. John’s is 9-0 in BIG EAST play and moved up from No. 23 to No. 16 in the College Baseball Top 30 as the Red Storm enter the week on a 12-game winning streak. The last time a BIG EAST team had such a start to the season with the 2000 Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Rutgers swept Georgetown, Boston College and West Virginia, then took 2-of-3 from Connecticut to win 11-straight games
(Research courtesy of St. John’s athletics). Georgetown (14-23, 2-4) entered the weekend on a seven-game winning streak. St. John’s won Friday’s game 6-3 and then took a decisive 9-1 victory on Saturday. Sunday’s finale however went into the 10th inning. St. John’s Josh Greene narrowly avoided the tag on a suicide squeeze for the 2-1 win. For St. John’s, only the 1991 squad, which claimed its first 10 conference decisions, won more games to start a league season since this year’s roster. Since the league realigned prior to the start of the 2014 season, no BIG EAST team had begun conference play with more than six-consecutive victories.
In Indianapolis, Seton Hall (17-14-1, 5-1) also marked a series sweep as the Pirates won 6-1, 3-0 then 7-5. Butler (24-11, 4-4) went into the weekend on a six-game winning streak and was second in the conference standings behind the Red Storm. With the sweep, Seton Hall jumped Butler. In the Saturday shutout for the series win, Seton Hall sophomore Ricky DeVito tossed eight shutout innings while senior Rob Dadona had four hits. DeVito scattered just four hits and struck out a career-high eight batters with just one walk. The eight-inning appearance was the longest outing for any Pirate so far this season. Dadona went 4-for-5 with a two-run homer.
Creighton moved out of sixth place in the league standings and into playoff contention as the Bluejays won two of three on the road against Xavier. Creighton (23-11, 3-5) and Xavier (13-26, 3-6) combined for 66 runs as the Bluejays won 24-8 on Friday and 7-3 on Saturday. On Sunday, Xavier won the finale 12-8. Will Robertson hit .467 with six RBI and two homers in the series.
In non-league play, Villanova (6-26, 0-6) was swept by Wagner.
Results In #BIGEASTbase
FRIDAY, April 20
CREIGHTON 24, XAVIER 8
No. 23 ST. JOHN’S 6, GEORGETOWN 3
Wagner 8, VILLANOVA 7
SETON HALL 3, BUTLER 0
SATURDAY, April 21
No. 23 ST. JOHN’S 9, GEORGETOWN 1
CREIGHTON 7, XAVIER 3
Wagner 7, VILLANOVA 2
SETON HALL 6, Butler 1
SUNDAY, April 22
XAVIER 12, CREIGHTON 8
No. 23 ST. JOHN’S 2, GEORGETOWN 1 (10 Inn.)
SETON HALL 7, BUTLER 5
Wagner 6, VILLANOVA 5
Upcoming in #BIGEASTbase
TUESDAY, April 24
XAVIER at Northern Kentucky at 3 p.m.
N.J.I.T. at SETON HALL at 3:30 p.m.
BUTLER at Indiana U. Kokomo at 6 p.m.
George Washington at GEORGETOWN at 7 p.m.
CREIGHTON at Nebraska at 7:35 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, April 25
Eastern Kentucky at XAVIER at 3 p.m.
Miami Ohio at BUTLER at 4 p.m.
CREIGHTON at South Dakota State at 4 p.m.
All times listed are Eastern.