Here at Seton Hall we unfortunately do not have a football team, however we prefer to say that our team is undefeated.   On Monday night, however, many students found an alternative to the game loved by millions Americans in a game loved by millions of Europeans.  When there’s no football, the Pirates turn to futball.  Over 2,000 Seton Hall students piled into Owen T. Carroll Field to watch the men’s soccer team take on the St. Peter’s University Peacocks.

Just over 6 minutes into play, with fans still filing in, Sophomore Samuel Petrone excited the home crowd by giving the Pirates an early 1-0 lead.  It would be the first of many for the Glen Rock, NJ native who had a hat trick in the first half and tallied 4 goals in the contest.

In the 19th minute of play, Petrone sent the packed house into a frezny once again when he got open in the box and headed a Brayan Martinez cross past the St. Peter’s keeper.  Late in the first half, he finished the hat trick on another beautiful header.  This time he took a cross from Jerry Saintil on the opposite side of the field and beat the defender to the ball to give the Pirates a 3-0 halftime lead.

Early in the second half, Rumen Kerekov of St. Peter’s struck twice in a 3:01 span to pull the Peacocks back into the game and get the visiting fans to their feet.  Both teams applied back and forth pressure throughout the second half with St.Peter’s striking 2 posts, and Seton Hall drilling a two shots off the crossbar.

In the 79th minute of regulation, Brayan Martinez broke free on the right side and blasted a shot to the uppe far corner of the net to once again bring the Pirate faithful to their feet and all but seal the deal.  In the final seconds of the contest Petrone added one more for good measure, burying a rocket from 35 yards out just under the crossbar to make the final score 5-2 Pirates.

With the win, Seton Hall improves their record this season to 2-0; the first victory came against Monmouth, 1-0 in overtime.   The Hall will now hit the road for two tournaments, the VCU  Classic and the Princeton Invitational, before returning home for Big East Conference play against DePaul.

The Big East Championship is being hosted in Clearwater Florida by the Philadelphia Phillies’ class A affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers. Tournament play starts on Tuesday, May 4th.

The Pirates and Louisville Cardinals will open play in the double-elimination tournament with a 10:00 AM start time. The other three opening round match-ups at Brighthouse Field include: St. John’s vs Villanova at 1:00PM, Cincinnati vs West Virginia at 5:00PM, and Notre Dame vs USF at 8:00PM.

As the fifth seed, Seton Hall is far from a favorite to win the Championship, but as the UConn Huskies proved last year, anything can happen. In 2006-07, the Connecticut Huskies rallied for a walk-off win on the last day of the regular season to steal the 8th and final Big East Tournament seed at KeySpan Park in Brooklyn, New York. In their first game, the battled top seeded St. John’s hard, but dropped a 2-1 game that forced them down into the loser’s bracket. On day 2, the Huskies avoided elimination with a 5-2 upset over 4th seeded Pittsburgh to set up a rematch with the Red Storm, who fell 2-0 to South Florida. This time, the Huskies’ hard work would pay off in a big way. St. John’s jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but the Huskies used a 5 run 7th inning to take a 6-5 lead at the time. After St. John’s tied the game, Connecticut senior Matt Untiet launched a 2-out walk-off bomb to straightaway center field, taking the #1 seed out of the tournament. The eighth seeded Huskies mobbed him in a raucous celebration at the plate, but they weren’t finished yet. Their semi-final opponent was South Florida, the team who handed St. John’s their 1st loss. Since the Huskies had a loss and the Bulls did not, UConn needed to defeat USF twice that day to advance while South Florida only needed to win once. Behind two stellar pitching performances, Connecticut promptly disposed of South Florida, 3-0 and 2-0, to advance to the final against Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights scored 3 times in the 1st inning and went on to take a commanding 7-1 lead into the ninth. The Huskies then put their rally caps on and scored 5 times in the inning, cutting the deficit to 7-6 with the tying run on first and winning run at the plate with 1 out. Rutgers held on, getting a pop-up to short and a fly-out to center to end the game, but the Huskies deserved a lot of credit for their incredible run.

If UConn can reach the title game as the eighth seed in the tournament, then there is no reason why The Hall cannot win the title from the 5th seed. They’ve already beaten top seeded St. John’s once this year and they can do it again. It will be a tough road to earn the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but Seton Hall certainly has a shot.

The Pirates stormed back from an early 1-0 deficit to build up a 4-1 lead, and from their on, the pitching staff was able to hold on to secure the win.

There is still a lot of baseball left to be played this year, but standing at 10-4 in the Big East and 21-12 overall, the Pirates are  well on their way to returning to the Big East Tournament.

The Blue and White will be looking for consecutive victory number 10 and the three game sweep of West Virginia when they host the Mountaineers on Sunday in the final game of the series.

Joe DiRocco threw 5 1/3 innings allowing 4 runs on 6 hits to pick up the win.  Jesse Gwaltney and Matt Singer then combined to finish the game with 3 2/3 scoreless innings.  Singer tossed the final two frames to pick up the save.

The Pirates picked up their 20th win of the season and league leading 9th Big East Conference victory leaving them in 4th place at 9-4.

The Pirates and Mountaineers will go at it again on Saturday at 1:00PM in game 2 of their three game set.

Five pitchers combined to hold Fordham to just one run and senior Louis Fernandez picked up the victory for the blue and white with 3 scoreless innings of relief.  The strong pitching performances were all very necessary as the Seton Hall attack was held in check all day.  The Pirates only managed one hit in the game, a single off the bat of Frank Esposito.

With the win, the Pirates (8-4 Big East) improve to 19-12 overall on the season.  The Hall now prepares to host a three game set over the weekend against Big East foe, West Virginia.  The Mountaineers enter the game boasting a  fantastic 25-7 record as well as a 6-3 Big East record that leaves them just behind the Pirates in the conference standings..

A 2-run single my Matt Skopak in the 6th inning gave The Hall a 3-2 lead.  Chris Affinito then smacked a 2-run bomb in the 7th to pad the lead.  They went on to add one more insurance run before the game went final.

Greg Miller had a strong day on the mound, allowing 2 runs (1 earned) through 6 innings while walking 5 and striking out 5.  Joe Dirocco struck out 3 batters through 2 innings of scoreless relief and Matt Singer shut the door allowing only 1 hit in the ninth.

Seton Hall now stands at 13-12 overall and tied with the UConn Huskies at 5-4 in Big East play.  The Pirates return to action on April 1st when they visit Rider for the first of three straight non-conference games against fellow New Jersey schools.  They then host Fairleigh Dickinson in a double header on the 2nd.

The Pirates opened the season with a 3-1 victory over Memphis before dropping four straight games to Arkansas State, Ohio State, Virginia Commonwealth, and Richmond.  They then snapped the streak with a 11-0 rout of the Richmond Spiders.  They followed that up by avenging their loss to Virginia Commonwealth with a 4-1 win. In non-conference play, The Hall also has 2 wins over Radford and one over Army to go along with losses to Hofstra, Radford, St. Joseph’s, and St. Peter’s.

To open Big East play, the Pirates dropped a couple of nail biters at South Florida before stealing the final game of the three game set, 3-2.  They then defended their home turf from the Villanova Wildcats by sweeping a double-header on March 20th, 3-2 in game one and 2-0 in the night cap, before sending the ‘NovaCats home with a 13-0 beating on the 22nd.

Seton Hall baseball will be back in action on Tuesday, March 25th when they host the front end of a home and home series with the NJIT Highlanders.  The return game at the New Jersey Institute of Technology will be the following day.  The Hall currently holds a 10-10 record overall and stands in 4th place in the Big East at 4-2 in conference.  They resume conference play on Friday, Mach 28th when they travel into New York for a 3-game weekend series with the St. John’s Red Storm (16-4, 3-0 Big East).

Positives

They finished with a winning record of 17-15 playing in the Big East.
They qualified for the Big East Tournament.
They have a huge win over Louisville.
They have some very close losses to good teams such as Marquette.
They have a lot of experience against quality opponents with 12 games against opponents who wereranked in the top 25 at some point this season.
They beat Virginia of the ACC who was #23 at the time on a neutral court.
The Seton Hall campus is a 15 minute train ride from Madison Square Garden, sight of the semis and finals so they could bring a large crowd. (NIT only)
Seton Hall already brought a large crowd to Madison Square Garden for the Big East Tournament and almost upset Marquette. (NIT only)

Negatives

They have been inconsistent, combining bad losses with their good wins.
They struggled at the end of the season.

This was a classic Big East Conference basketball game.  It was physical and the refs let the players play.   In the end, it was having all three of their big men foul out that did the Pirates in.  John Garcia, Mike Davis, and Augustine Okosun combined for 12 points and a slew of blocked shots that kept the Pirates alive.  Jamar Nutter and Eugene Harvey led Seton Hall with 13 points each and Jeremy Hazell also reached double digits with 10 points.  Brian Laing, The Hall’s leading scorer on the season, finished with a disappointing 6 points.  The Pirates struggled from beyond the arc, shooting an uncharacteristic 4-21 from three point land.  A long distance performance that this team is capable certainly could have changed things, but rebounding was the story of the night.

Marquette dominated the glass, out-rebounding Seton Hall 52-31.  The biggest part is how Marquette dominated on the Pirates’ side of the floor.  The Golden Eagles pulled down an incredible 22 offensive rebounds to Seton Hall’s 21 defensive rebounds.  The offensive boards led to a ton of second half points and a Marquette win.

The loss eliminates Seton Hall from from the Big East tournament and ends their hope of advancing the the NCAA tournament with a Big East Championship.  The Pirates still do have a shot to qualify for the NIT or the new CBI, so now they will just sit and wait to see if their profile is impressive enough for one of those two post-season tournaments.

The Pirates are 0-2 this season against Marquette, losing a tight 5 point game in Milwaukee, and then getting blown out at home.  Hopefully the third time will be a charm for the Pirates, who desperately need a win if they hope to participate in any post season tournament.