TicketsMay 22, 2010
CINCINNATI - On the final day of the 2010 baseball regular season, a doubleheader win by the University of Louisville over the University of Notre Dame coupled with a University of Connecticut loss to Seton Hall University gave the Cardinals the BIG EAST Conference regular-season title and therefore, the University of Cincinnati baseball team will meet the second-seed UConn Huskies in its first game of the 2010 BIG EAST Baseball Championships on Wednesday, May 26, at Bright House Field in Clearwater, Fla. Cincinnati will be making its fourth trip in five seasons to the conference tournament.
The conference championships will be played at Bright House Networks Field from May 26-30, the Spring Training home of the Philadelphia Phillies. The tournament's opening ceremonies and awards presentations will be Tuesday, May 25 at 6 p.m. at Bright House Field, followed by the first BIG EAST Home Run Derby at 7 p.m.
The Bearcats and Huskies met for a three-game series May 8-9 in Storrs, Conn., and the then-No. 20 Huskies took two of three games from UC. Cincinnati salvaged the final game of the series courtesy of a complete game from freshman Andrew Strenge, who made his first career start that day.
Cincinnati and Connecticut are set to play the second game on the opening day of the BIG EAST Championships, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. The game can be heard on www.GoBEARCATS.com.
The opening game of the tournament will pit No. 3-seed Pittsburgh against No. 6-seed Rutgers at 10 a.m. Following UC and UConn at 1 p.m., top-seeded Louisville takes on No. 8-seed West Virginia at 5 p.m., and No. 4-seed St. John's will meet No. 5-seed USF in the nightcap at 8 p.m.
The winner of the Cincinnati/Connecticut match-up will meet the winner of the Pittsburgh/Rutgers game at 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 27. The losers of those games will play at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
West Virginia, who three weeks ago was 3-15 in league play after being swept by Cincinnati, won seven of its final nine conference games to finish 10-17 in league play equaling Notre Dame. However, West Virginia swept the Irish during the regular season, giving the Mountaineers the tie-breaker and the No. 8 seed.
The BIG EAST Championship is an eight-team, double-elimination tournament, with the championship game scheduled for Sunday, May 30 at noon Eastern. The winner of the tournament receives the BIG EAST's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
The May 30 BIG EAST Championship game will be televised live on ESPNU, marking the fifth straight year in which the title game will be carried live on the ESPN family of networks. In addition, every game of the 2010 Championship may be heard on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. The live broadcasts can be heard on XM channel 203 and on Sirius channel 216 for subscribers to the Best of XM package.
Coverage of the BIG EAST Championship also will be available on the web at www.bigeastbaseball.com. The site will include live streaming video of all games from the first four days of competition along with live statistics and an interactive live blog from the site as well as live coverage of Tuesday's opening ceremonies and Home Run Derby.
For continuous updates on UC baseball in the conference tournament, stay tuned to www.GoBEARCATS.com.