Syracuse snaps 7-game skid with thrilling 9-6 extra-inning win over Pitt
Syracuse softball snapped its ACC-opening seven-game losing skid on Thursday, defeating Pitt on the road 9-6 in extra innings. Charlie Hynes | Staff Photographer
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Shannon Doepking didn’t hesitate to call her team out last weekend.
After Syracuse was outscored 15-1 across both legs of its doubleheader against NC State, the eighth-year head coach told 247Sports that SU couldn’t win games with just Jadyn Burney producing offensively. Burney notched two hits in the second game of the doubleheader, but the remainder of the team mustered just two combined hits, leading to a lopsided 10-0 loss.
“We can’t just win ball games with Jadyn,” Doepking told 247Sports after the sweep. “We need somebody behind her to hit her in for it to help us.”
The message was needed. Syracuse entered Thursday with a measly .165 batting average through seven games of Atlantic Coast Conference play. Outside of a six spot against then-No. 10 Florida State on March 15, SU hadn’t scored over four runs in a game since March 1.
Maybe it took 80-degree temperatures and little wind in Pittsburgh. Perhaps just a change of scenery was all Syracuse needed. Either way, the Orange heeded Doepking’s words.
In thrilling fashion, Syracuse (12-14, 1-7 ACC) snuck past Pitt (18-17, 4-9 ACC) 9-6 Thursday in eight innings. The Orange squandered a five-run lead and nearly suffered a monumental collapse, but Madison Knight’s two-run double in the eighth proved to be the difference. SU’s nine runs were its most since Feb. 28, and eight different players recorded at least one hit.
Syracuse entered Thursday with a negative-19 first-inning run differential. In Game 2 of its doubleheader against NC State last Sunday, SU trailed 2-0 before recording two outs.
It took just two pitches for Syracuse to flip the script Thursday.
Fittingly, Burney got the party started. After a first-pitch ball, Burney smacked a homer over the center field wall to give the Orange a 1-0 lead. Pitt starting pitcher Kyra Pittman entered Thursday with a 2.88 earned run average but struggled out of the gate.
After Knight retired the side in the bottom of the first, Erika Zamora extended SU’s lead to two with a home run in the second. Swinging on the first pitch, Zamora belted a towering shot into left for her second long ball of the season.
Even during its seven-game skid, power hitting wasn’t a concern for Syracuse. Burney hit a grand slam in the Orange’s 11-6 loss to FSU on March 15, and SU hit three homers in its doubleheader loss to Virginia the following weekend.
Knight cruised through two innings, inducing only soft contact, though Pitt’s Ahmari Braden cut SU’s lead in half with a solo shot in the third. But the Panthers’ momentum wouldn’t last long, and the Orange chased Pittman from the game in the fifth inning.
SU’s fifth-inning rally started with consecutive hits from Lauren Fox and Burney. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Madelyn Lopez laid down a successful bunt to load the bases.
While Rose Cano then lined into a double play, it didn’t take SU long to load the bases again. After Knight walked, it was up to Kaimi Tulua to break the game open.
She did just that. Her grand slam put the Orange up 6-1, and SU spilled out of the dugout to swarm her at home plate.
Smooth sailing the rest of the way, right?
Not quite. Knight ran out of gas in the bottom of the sixth, and the Panthers took advantage. Off the bench, Addison Toczek blasted a two-run homer to make it 6-3. Knight worked out of trouble in the fourth and fifth, but fatigue eventually caught up.
With a three-run lead heading into the bottom of the seventh inning, Doepking opted to not go to her bullpen. Knight threw 147 pitches last Sunday against the Wolfpack, but it didn’t alter Doepking’s decision.
After a Tieley Vaughn flyout, Alena Ball doubled to keep the Panthers alive. Then, KK Esparza singled to put runners on the corners with one out. Knight’s struggles were becoming more apparent, and it led to an errant pitch that scored Esparza, cutting the lead to 6-4.
Enter Camryn Murphy. After making the jump from Division II Seton Hill to Pitt last season, she led the Panthers with nine homers in 2025. But Thursday’s may have outdone all of them.
With two outs, Murphy launched a two-run homer to tie the game. Once dead in the water, Pitt’s rally sent the game to extra innings.
That’s when Knight came to the rescue, this time at the plate. With Burney and Lopez on base, Knight ripped a double to left field to score two and put the Orange back up 8-6 in the eighth. Zamora’s walk drew in an insurance run, and SU led by three again.
This time around, Knight shut the door. She hit Esparza but worked around it by inducing a Calle Henne groundout to finish the job.
It took a career-high 179 pitches from Knight. Syracuse sent 32 batters to the plate. The game lasted over three hours.
But for the first time in 340 days, SU found itself in an unfamiliar spot: the ACC win column.
