Notre Dame baseball: Norton guides Irish to upset

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Senior right-hander Adam Norton got Notre Dame’s baseball team off to a surprising start in the Big East Tournament on Tuesday.

Norton tossed his third complete game shutout of the season to lead the No. 7-seeded Irish past No. 2 Seton Hall, 5-0, at Bright House Stadium.

Notre Dame (32-23) will face third-seeded Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. Thursday in a winner’s bracket game.

Norton cooled off one of the hottest teams in all of college baseball. Seton Hall (36-18) had won 36 of its last 45 games, including 15 of its last 16 outings, but the Pirates had no answer for Norton.

Norton (10-4) became the first Irish pitcher to reach the 10-win mark since Aaron Heilman in 2001. He limited Seton Hall to a mere seven hits — five of which came with two outs — and nine total base runners. Norton struck out seven and registered Notre Dame's first shutout in the Big East Tournament since Dan Stavisky blanked St. John's in 1996.

Frank Desico, Eric Jagielo and Trey Mancini all had multi-hit games.

Mancini extended his hitting streak to a school-record 23 games, DeSico scored a pair of runs and Jagielo drove in a pair.

Notre Dame jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. DeSico doubled, was sacrificed to third and scored on a Jagielo single.

Jagielo struck again in the fifth with a run-scoring double.

Blaise Lezynski delivered a towering two-run homer in the sixth that added a couple of insurance runs. The blast was his second of the season and sailed completely out of the ballpark.

Notre Dame extended its lead to 5-0 following an RBI single from Mancini in the ninth, which was more than enough for Norton.

Adam Norton (W, 10-4); Jon Prosinski (L, 7-4), Jose Lopez (6), Conor Krauss (8), Ricky Mangione (9).

2B: Frank DeSico (ND), Eric Jagielo (ND).

HR: Blaise Lezynski (ND).

Records: Notre Dame 32-23, Seton Hall 36-18