Penn State Set for Keystone Clash with Pittsburgh on ACCN
Nittany Lions make national television debut on ACC Network with in-state rivalry matchup with Pitt
PITTSBURGH – Penn State softball gears up for its national television debut and renews a classic in-state rivalry matchup with the Pittsburgh Panthers on Tuesday, March 31, as the Nittany Lions and Panthers square off in a 6 p.m. (ET) matchup from Vartabedian Field. The game will air live to a national audience via the ACC Network, with streaming available to authenticated subscribers via the ESPN app on connected devices.
Follow the Action
Penn State’s Keystone Clash with the in-state rival Pittsburgh Panthers will air live to a national television audience via the ACC Network, with streaming available to a worldwide audience of authenticated subscribers through the ESPN App and the link here. Casey Roehl and Jennie Ritter will call the action throughout Tuesday night’s midweek contest. Admission to Vartabedian Field is free, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. Live stats provided by the University of Pittsburgh and StatBroadcast are available via Penn State’s StatBroadcast hub at the link here.
QUICK HITS
The Nittany Lions return to action in midweek competition following a three-game Big Ten Conference series sweep of the border-rival Rutgers Scarlet Knights on the road in Piscataway. PSU dominated the opening matchup by an 8-0 score and picked up gritty 7-6 and 7-5 results in the final two games of the series. Penn State has now swept Rutgers in consecutive seasons and boasts a 7-2 ledger against the Scarlet Knights over the last three seasons.
PSU saw a landmark performance from freshman third baseman Allison Oneacre in the opening game of the weekend against Rutgers, with the Alpharetta, Georgia, native matching the Penn State single-season freshman home run record set by Chelsea Bisi in the 2019 game. Oneacre cranked a pair of homers in the series opener to amass her 12th and 13th homers of the 2026 campaign. The rookie sensation is now tied for the fourth-most home runs in a single season by a Nittany Lion of any classification and needs just seven homers to match, and eight to surpass the program record of 20 set by PSU’s only First Team NFCA All-American, Cassidy Bell, in the 2013 season.
Junior right-handed pitcher McKenna Young has been a force in the circle throughout the 2026 season in Happy Valley, with the South Dakota transfer boasting the Nittany Lions’ highest win total this year with an 8-2 individual record. Young is fresh off a dominant series against Rutgers, helping steer the Blue & White to a series sweep by appearing in all three games of the series. Young, a native of Brodhead, Wisconsin, tossed 8.1 innings across the three-game set and yielded a series ERA of 0.84, securing a pair of winning decisions while notching a 10-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
AO, AO-KAY
Freshman third baseman Allison Oneacre made history in the opening game of the Rutgers series by becoming the first Nittany Lion in program history to record two multi-homer efforts in their true freshman season. Oneacre also became just the third Nittany Lion of any classification in PSU history to have more than one multiple-homer effort in a single season, joining 2002 alumna Jennifer Tripken and 2013 alumna Cassidy Bell, who both had two multi-homer games in their senior campaigns. The rookie sensation is up to 13 home runs this year to date, good enough for the fourth-most home runs in a single season by any Penn State student-athlete all-time while matching the program’s single-season record for a freshman, set by Chelsea Bisi in 2019. Oneacre also needs just seven RBI to tie and eight to break the program’s single-season RBI record set by Brooke Klosowicz a season ago.
Penn State at Pittsburgh
Record | 23-11 | 4-5 B1G
Record | 17-16 | 4-8 B1G
Introducing Pittsburgh
ABOUT THE PANTHERS
Led by legendary head coach Jenny Allard, the Pittsburgh Panthers enter Tuesday night’s in-state rivalry clash working with a 17-16 overall record coupled with a 4-8 start in Atlantic Coast Conference competition. Pitt is fresh off a grueling series against No. 13 Virginia, with the Cavaliers taking all three games in a road matchup from Charlottesville. Pittsburgh has been scrappy through the early going in the 2026 campaign, with the Panthers anchored by a sizable freshman class that has helped steer the team to a pair of ACC series victories. The Panthers have been able to take two-of-three games off the NC State Wolfpack, as well as common PSU opponent Boston College through the early going in conference action. Pitt is 1-4 in its last five games and 4-6 in the last 10. The breakout of graduate catcher KK Esparza has been the story of the 2026 season for the Panthers, with the third-year Ole Miss transfer notching a career-best .403 batting average while leading the Pitt roster in both home runs (seven) and RBI (29), which both stand as single-season career-best marks. Tieley Vaughn and Alena Ball have also been crucial, with both athletes boasting averages above .300 this year. In the circle, Pittsburgh has seen three consistent contributors throw the vast majority of the team’s innings, with Kyra Pittman, Bekah Duck and Gwen Sparks managing things from the pitcher’s rubber. Pittman has served as the staff’s ace, boasting team-bests in innings pitched (68.0), ERA (2.88) and strikeouts (49).
STORY OF THE SERIES
Penn State prepares to square off against its in-state rival from the west for the 30th time in an all-time series that dates back to the 2000 campaign. PSU has taken 20 of the first 29 contests to rack up an impressive 20-9 differential in the series. The squads first met on March 25, 2000, with a neutral site matchup from Charlottesville, Virginia, notching a 6-2 win in the lid-lifting matchup. The Blue & White won the first seven contests in the all-time series from 2000 to 2007, with Pitt taking three of the next four. Of late, Penn State has been the far stronger team in the series, amassing wins in five of the last six matchups dating back to the 2019 season. Under the direction of sixth-year head coach Clarisa Crowell, Penn State owns a strong 4-1 ledger against the Panthers since 2022. Penn State and Pitt last squared off in Oakland back on March 16, 2022, a 6-0 midweek win for the Blue & White from Vartabedian Field. PSU and Pitt were scheduled to face off in Pittsburgh during PSU’s 2024 NCAA Regional season, but a conference scheduling adjustment saw the midweek matchup canceled that year. PSU and Pitt met earlier this season during the Houston Invitational on Sunday, March 15, with the Blue & White booking their first run-rule win in the all-time series with an 11-2 result in five innings. Pitt took an early 2-0 advantage, but the Nittany Lions went on to score the remaining 11 runs highlighted by an eight-run, three-homer home half of the second.
Follow the Nittany Lions
Visit GoPSUsports.com for more information on Penn State softball. Fans can keep up to date with the Nittany Lion softball team on Facebook at /pennstatesoftball as well as Instagram and X @PennStateSB.
The 2026 Penn State softball season is presented by Highmark.