Pitt
Rutgers
Softball Earns its Seventh Shutout of the Season
5/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 2, 2009
PITTSBURGH—Freshmen Kristen Cheesebrew and Niki Cognigni each record two hits, as the University of Pittsburgh softball team earned its seventh shutout of the season with a 3-0 win in its first game of this afternoon’s doubleheader against Rutgers, at Trees Field. The Panthers improved to 24-22 on the season and 8-13 in the Big East, while the Scarlet Knights slipped to 21-31 overall and 4-7 in the league.
Scoreless through three innings of action, Pitt got on the board with two runs off two hits and three Rutgers errors in the fourth inning. Both runs were unearned run after Cheesebrew and Cognigni recorded one-base hits and got a second base off a Scarlet Knight fielding error.
Rutgers committed its third error of that same inning on junior Megan Livesey’s infield groundball, which allowed Cognigni to score.
Cheesebrew then recorded another single in the fifth inning, driving in the final run of the game as senior Sam Card, who was walked earlier, scored.
Defensively, Pitt got out of a jam in the second inning when sophomore Cory Berliner fielded two groundballs on back-to-back batters to strand two Rutgers base runners.
Later, in the sixth inning, sophomore Reba Tutt held off a potential run when she tracked down a double in centerfield and fired a shot to Card at the plate. On the next at-bat, the runner at third attempted to score on a short infield play, but Cognigni made a throw home for the second out of the inning to keep Rutgers off the scoreboard. An interference play loaded the bases a batter later, but Livesey ended the inning when she properly fielded a groundball.
Berliner (9-9) recorded her third shutout of the season in the victory, allowing six hits. She also recorded four strikeouts, improving to 235 in her career.
Prior to the first pitch of this afternoon’s game, the Panthers honored Nikki (Gasti) Barnyak and Francesca (DiMaria) Sucre, who each remain program record holders. Barnyak is a 2003 graduate who holds the career strikeout and career shutout records at 584 and 17, respectively. A 2006 graduate, Sucre holds several career records, including batting average (.329), hits (218), runs scored (133) and triples (15).
