Cliff Godwin moved to third all time in wins for ECU to pass the late Keith LeClair with his 213th victory and ECU completed a three game sweep of Charlottea with a 4-1 Sunday victory at Hayes Stadium.
Lane Hoover and Alec Burleson both had a pair of hits to lead ECU including a Burleson home run in the first inning in an eight hit Pirate attack.
ECU(12-3) grabbed their fifth straight victory and Jake Kuchaner improved to 4-0 to pick up the win on the mound for the Pirates, lasting five innings, yielding just one run with five strikeouts and scattering just five hits before left-hander C.J. Mayhue came on after a Rafi Vazquez base hit on in the sixth.
For the third straight day, the Pirates got off to a quick start on Burleson’s second home run of the year on a solo shot off of 49er starting pitcher Andrew Roach over the right field wall.
After losses on both Friday and Saturday to ECU, Charlotte was determined to make a game of it. They got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third inning David McGabe’s single to right brought Todd Elwood home from second base to tie the game at 1-1.
But that was as close at Charlotte(8-8) would come as (22)ECU recaptured the lead in the fourth on a Connor Norby RBI base hit that bounced into left field for a 2-1 lead and the Pirates never looked back.
In the seventh inning, Christian Jayne turned on the jets and scored from second for ECU on a Lane Hoover grounder to second as the Pirate lead grew to 3-1. That got Andrew Roach pulled from the mound in favor of Colby Bruce. Roach gave up three earned runs on eight hits with three strikeouts in 6.2 innings of work.
Roach didn’t last long after Zach Agnos reached on a throwing error in the top of the seventh from David McCabe at shortstop that bounced past first base resulted in another ECU run when Hoover scored to make it 4-1.
Matt Bridges came on to throw three strong innings to close out the game and pick up his second save of the season for the Pirates. Bridges gave up just a pair of hits with three strikeouts. Charlotte left ten base runners stranded on the day.
ECU hosts Elon Tuesday night in Clark-LeClair Stadium with the first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
