Pitt Earns Important 4-3 Walk-Off Win Over Wake Forest
After losing the opening two games of the series against Wake Forest, the Pitt baseball team found themselves in an important game on Sunday.
While they couldn’t win the series, the Panthers needed to find a way to earn a win in order not to be swept and they did just that.
Once again, the 2026 Pitt baseball team was able to come up with some late inning magic and came away with a walk-off 4-3 win over Wake Forest. Clutch sacrifice flies in the 9th inning from AJ Nessler and Caden Dulin ended up being the difference.
This was the fourth time Pitt’s last 13 games that they ended up winning a game that they were tied or trailing going into the final inning.
With the win, Pitt improved their overall record to 21-9 and 6-6 in the difficult ACC conference. The Deamon Deacons are now 23-10 and 8-7.
Tip of the cap to the Panthers pitching on Sunday was both Drew Lafferty and Eddie Smink were outstanding. Lafferty got the start and went 6.2 innings, allowing just two earned runs and striking out 4 batters. Smink pitched the final 2.1 innings and gave up just 1 hit, 0 runs to earn the win.
Offensively for Pitt, 2B Trey Fenderson and C Sebastian Pisacreta each collected two hits, CF Derrick Tarpley Jr. hit an important opposite field home run in the 6th inning. That was the 3rd HR in the last 4 games for Tarpley and his 4th HR of the season for Tarpley.
Trailing by 2 in the 7th inning, Pisacreta’s RBI double in the 7th inning scored Fenderson and cut Pitt’s deficit to just 3-2 allowing for heroics in the final frame.
In the bottom of the 9th inning, Pisacreta led off with a single and the next two Panthers hitters also reached (Joey Baran courtesy of a Wake Forest error and PH Anthony LaSala via hit by pitch).
With the bases loaded and no outs, Nessler drove in the first runner with a sacrifice fly to deep left, which also moved up Baran to third base. That extra 90 feet allowed Dulin to end the game with a deep sacrifice fly to center, which scored Baran.
After two days off, Pitt returns to action on Wednesday when they host Youngstown State at 6 PM in a non-conference game. First pitch from Charles L. Cost Field is set for 6 PM.
