ECU Bats Remain Hot in 8-5 Midweek Win Over UNC-W
ECU endured a four hour marathon with UNC-Wilmington and picked up an 8-5 midweek win Tuesday night in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Bryant Packard had three hits, three runs and an RBI to lead the Pirates to their thirtieth win of the season.Spencer Brickhouse and Seth Caddell added a pair of RBI each for ECU.
“They’re a really tough, hard nosed team, but I think we out toughed them tonight. We just wanted to hunt the fastball tonight. UNC-W’s bullpen is one of the best in the country. They have multiple arms that come out and their starters really don’t go too long. We wanted to get the lefty out early and get to the pen because we know all of their relievers,” said Packard, “Every game matters. It doesn’t matter who you play you’ve just got to play your brand of baseball.”
Zach Barnes moved to 2-2 with the win for ECU. Alec Burleson came on late to pick up the save while Henry Ryan absorbed the loss for Wilmington(20-22) to dip to 3-4 on the year.
Cliff Godwin was pleased with the effort of his team throughout the game and particularly late in the contest.
“We needed it. You can throw records out. It’s a rivalry. Coach Scalf’s last time coming here. They played really well. Walke pitched his tail off against us and kept us off balance so hats off to him,” said Godwin, “If Trey Benton hadn’t been as sharp as he was then we would have been in trouble.”
“Really impressed with the resilience of our offense. The last three innings they scored and we scored in the bottom half. Really the game was in the eighth when they put up two runs and we put up four and that was the end of the game,” Godwin stated, “You look at every position player played and even Kuchmaner got some first base time. We cleaned the bench and that’s going to pay some dividends down the road because we’re getting a lot of guys in there.”
Spencer Brickhouse’s grounder to short allowed Bryant Packard to score to give ECU an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.
The two teams remained relatively quiet until the six and seventh inning where both teams scored a total of three runs. Seth Caddell's triple to center scored a pair of those runs.
"At first I thought it was going to hang up and he was going to catch it but it kept going and I was like oh Lord I'm going to have to get on my horse here for a triple," said Caddell, "It was my first one."
But it was the eighth inning where ECU began to separate themselves, scoring four runs to UNC-W’s two when Bryant Packard doubled down the left field line followed by another run when Lane Hoover scored on a Wilmington fielding error. Alec Burleson’s base hit up the middle added another Pirate run.
Wilmington was unable to answer in the top of the ninth and the Pirates picked up the three run 8-5 win.
ECU(30-10/11-1 AAC) next hits the road for a 6 o’clock encounter with Old Dominion Wednesday night.
PI POSTGAME AUDIO: CLIFF GODWIN
