The Notre Dame baseball team will finish its regular season with a three-game series against Pittsburgh beginning May 14. The games are scheduled to take place at Charles L. Cost Field, with the first matchup set for 6:00 p.m.
This series marks the final opportunity for the Irish to secure wins before postseason play. Notre Dame leads the all-time series against Pittsburgh, having won 55 out of their 83 meetings since they first played in 1951.
According to information released by the team, Notre Dame last faced Pittsburgh in South Bend in a three-game set in 2004, winning two of those contests. Their most recent trip to Pittsburgh was in 2023, where they also claimed a two-to-one series victory.
In their latest game on Tuesday night at Prasco Park in Mason, Ohio, Notre Dame defeated Dayton by a score of 16-6 after eight innings. Drew Berkland hit two home runs and Jayce Lee added another homer. Aiden Zerr started and pitched two innings with one strikeout, while Caden Crowell earned the win by pitching two shutout innings and striking out three batters.
Head Coach Shawn Stiffler has become just the seventh coach in program history to achieve more than 100 wins as leader of the team. Junior pitcher Jack Radel has been recognized for his performance this season; he retired 38 consecutive batters across games against Florida Atlantic University and Alabama A&M and currently ranks eighth nationally—and first in the Atlantic Coast Conference—with a WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) of 0.97. Radel’s total of 103 strikeouts places him thirteenth nationally among pitchers.
The Irish roster features several returning players from last year’s squad that finished strong with a record of sixteen wins and only two losses over their final eighteen regular-season games. There are also twelve true freshmen on this year’s team—six ranked among their state’s top recruits—and seven transfer student-athletes including five graduate students have joined for this season.
Six members of Notre Dame’s roster appear on D1baseball.com’s preseason rankings by position: Bino Watters (first baseman), Jack Radel (starting pitcher), Mark Quatrani (catcher), Drew Berkland (outfielder), Oisin Lee (relief pitcher), and Davis Johnson (outfielder). Freshman Caden Crowell is ranked ninth on D1Baseball’s Impact Freshman List.
