The moment of truth came in the seventh inning yesterday. The score was tied with two outs, and Rutgers had the most-feared home run hitter in the Big East Conference at the plate.

Pitt coach Joe Jordano had a plan.

"If he came up with two outs and nobody on base, I planned to intentionally walk him," Jordano would say later, with a shrug.

But Jordano didn't.

When the count reached 2-0, Jordano said, "I literally jumped out of my seat."

But Jordano did not order a walk.

Instead, he let Paul Nardozzi pitch to Todd Frazier.

"Nardozzi threw a slider about six inches off the ground," Jordano said. "It was a good pitch that should have been a bad pitch to hit, but Frazier can hit some bad pitches. He won that one."

Frazier bashed his league-high 18th homer far over the left-field fence at Trees Field for a 3-2 lead, and Rutgers tacked on two unearned runs in the ninth for a 5-2 victory against Pitt. The victory moved Rutgers (18-5, 33-16) into first place in the Big East, and the loss left Pitt (13-9, 24-23) in fourth. The Panthers need one more victory to secure one of the eight spots in the league tournament at KeySpan Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., May 22-27.

"I'm a coach, so I'll believe we're in when we're actually on the bus going there," said Jordano, whose Panthers will host the Scarlet Knights at noon today to complete the three-game series.

Rutgers was a 10-9 winner in 10 innings in the opener Friday.

"We had opportunities to win both of the games. We gave them one Friday, and we made one mistake in this game."

Jordano added after a pause, "We played really hard, that's what counts."

In the 10-9 loss, Pitt rallied from a 5-0 deficit in the third inning to take an 8-6 lead in the seventh. After Rutgers went ahead in the ninth, 9-8, Pitt tied it in the bottom of the ninth to send the game into extra innings.

The Panthers have played the past seven games without their leading hitter, redshirt freshman third baseman Gary Bucuren, who is out with a hand injury. The absence has forced Jordano to juggle his lineup.

"We don't have the depth, so we have to play a clean baseball game in order to have a chance to win," he said. "The thing with us is some of the mistakes we make I attribute to our inexperience and youth."

Pitt, which completes its regular season with a three-game series at home against league-rival Seton Hall next weekend, has surpassed its win total of last season (23).

"We can be a very good team at times," Jordano said. "We just aren't consistent."

Yesterday, Rutgers took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on Jon Gossard's triple on a lazy, opposite-field fly ball that hugged the right-field line and Tim Querns' line-drive single to right. Pitt responded with two runs in the fourth on Seth Button's triple, a wild pitch and Dan Williams' home run.

Rutgers tied it, 2-2, on Dave Williams' homer in the sixth and went ahead, 3-2, on Frazier's home run. They added two unearned runs in the ninth.