ECU Battles Back to Beat UNC-W
ECU took their fifth straight win against UNC-Wilmington with a 5-4 win Wednesday night at Brooks Field.
Zach Barnes improved to 2-0 with the victory and Davis Kirkpatrick picked up his second save of the season. Luke Gesell dipped to 2-1 with the loss for the Seahawks.
Starter Jake Agnos along with Zach Barnes, Ryan Ross and Trey Benton all had two innings of work with Kirkpatrick coming on in the final two thirds of the ninth inning to shut the door for ECU. Benton came out of the game with one out in the ninth with what he termed as some hip tightness. He talked about the Pirate pitching staff’s overall performance Wednesday night.
“I’m thankful for my defense behind me for making a couple of plays and I was just trying to make quality pitches,” Benton said, “You’ve got to credit our pitching coach Coach Roszel working on getting ahead of hitters, first pitch strikes. I think that’s a key is getting ahead and not falling behind and when you get ahead, going ahead and putting them away.”
"This team fights through so much adversity. We had adversity early, they got ahead early and we answered back. I think that's the big thing this season," said Benton, "We always put our best foot forward and come back so that's helping us have a lot more success than last season for sure."
ECU head coach Cliff Godwin was relieved to pick up the road victory as his team heads into an AAC home weekend series with Cincinnati this Friday and he talked about the big five run fifth inning that got things rolling for the Pirates.
“Dwanya had a big hit then Brickhouse a triple down the line and Burleson had the triple down the line. Just a lot of quality at-bats and we might have hit around during that inning. Just a lot of tough at bats,” Godwin said, “Great team effort, so proud of them for the way they fought through a lot of adversity tonight.”
Wilmington got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the second inning when Levi Gesel’s base hit to right allowed Weiss to score. Then a Ryan Jeffers walk with the bases loaded scored another run to make the score 2-0.
In the bottom of the third, the Seahawks were at it again when a base hit from David Sheaffer brought Jones across home plate and suddenly the Pirates were down by three runs.
ECU tied the contest at 3-3 in the top of the fifth when Spencer Brickhouse’s triple down the right field line scored a pair of runs before Alec Burleson’s base hit to center brought Brickhouse home for another run. in the same inning a fielding error from Zack Canada with the bases loaded allowed two more ECU runs to score to give the Pirates their first lead of the contest at 5-3.
Kep Brown’s double to left scored a Wilmington run in the seventh frame to cut the ECU lead to one at 5-4.
Mason Berne doubled with one out in the bottom of the ninth then Greg Jones walked. But after Kep Brown popped out, Davis Kirkpatrick struck LP Oxendine out to end the contest.
ECU returns to action Friday night when the Pirates host Cincinnati for a three game AAC series with a 6:30 scheduled first pitch.
