(8)East Carolina came away with a perfect 5-0 week with a 2-0 win over Cincinnati at home to close out the week of baseball on Saturday and a perfect 4-0 start in conference play.
Connor Norby and Seth Caddell knocked in a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth in what was a scoreless second game of Saturday’s AAC double-header with Cincinnati(11-14/0-4 AAC)
Tyler Smith pitched four innings of scoreless baseball on the hill in game two for ECU(22-5/4-0 AAC) before Cam Colmore(3-0) and eventually C.J. Mayhue entered in relief and ended the final inning with three straight strikeouts.
Bearcat lefty starter Garrett Schoenle(1-1) took the loss, going five innings, giving up seven hits and a pair of runs along with six strikeouts when Jackson Murphy came on in relief.
“Our pitching did a very good job all weekend,” said ECU head coach Cliff Godwin, “A lot of guys played well, a lot of guys got in the game and I thought this was a tremendous effort staying focused the entire day. You’ve got to win baseball games all different ways.”
Colmore got the victory for the Pirates, his third straight with a personal best six strikeouts and Mayhue picked up his fifth save of the season.
“Obviously it feels great. We’re just taking it one game at a time. Like Coach G said, college baseball games are hard to win and four in a row is extremely tough,” said Cam Colmore, ”Guys came out, the defense was good, guys hit well this weekend, the pitching was great and we just took it one game at a time and that’s what we’re going to do moving forward.”
GAME ONE
(8)East Carolina won decisively in game one on Saturday by a score of 13-3 highlighted by a Ryley Johnson grand slam homer in the final inning.
C.J. Mayhue was credited with the victory to move to 2-1 in relief of Jake Kuchmaner who gave up nine hits and three earned runs with five strikeouts in 4.1 innings and 95 pitches.
Max Bergmann fell to 0-1 with the loss for Cincinnati(11-13/0-3 AAC).
Cincinnati scored three runs in the top of the second inning before the Pirates answered with a pair of runs of their own to make it 3-2 Bearcats.
Josh Moylan’s triple to right in the fourth inning tied the contest at 3-3 before ECU(21-5/3-0) added three more runs in the inning.
Then in the seventh, the Pirates scored seven more runs to make it 13-3 including Johnson’s grand slam home run.
The Pirates resume play against Memphis in a Friday double-header to begin the weekend. The first pitch is scheduled for 1 o’clock in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
