ECU picked up an 8-4 opening round victory over UCF in the first round of the AAC Baseball Tournament to get their fortieth win of the season. ECU(40-15) moves on to take on the winner of Houston and Tulane.
Pirate right-hander Chris Holba went three and a third innings for the Pirates, giving up four runs on a pair of hits in 69 pitches before Davis Kirkpatrick entered in relief. Kirkpatrick held UCF in check for an inning and two-thirds yielding to Ryan Ross in the sixth inning who ended up getting the win to move to 2-4. Zach Barnes then came in for the bottom of the eighth inning.
Luis Ferrer only lasted a third of an inning after giving up a run before being lifted for Thad Ward came to go two and two thirds, giving up five hits and four runs with a pair of strikeouts for UCF. He took the loss to fall to 5-4. Eric Hepple entered in the fourth frame for the fifth seeded Knights. Bryce Tucker came in for an inning before Jordan Spicer entered the game in the bottom of the seventh.
The Pirates hope to get a day off weather permitting and Coach Cliff Godwin talked about his team’s performance offensively,
“I thought our guys battled against a very good bullpen for UCF. Thank God for our bullpen who put up some zeros but offensively I thought we had some tough at-bats and really grinned out some things,” Godwin said, “Henny played his butt off an executed and we had a lot of quality at-bats up and down the lineup.”
Drew Henrickson went three for four with four RBI to lead the Pirates at the plate. Bryant Packard went 0-5 at the plate, ending his record breaking ECU consecutive game hit streak at 32 games.
“We just play to win and we just ended up with more runs today. Our pitching staff helped keep us in the game today. Three runs in the first inning was tough and they really battled and kept us in there,” said Henrickson who had a big three-run triple that helped put the game away, “I give that to my teammates because they set the table for me and gave us a chance to score some more runs I just happened to get a hit at that time.”
UCF(35-20) loaded the bases in the top of the first inning on Pirate starter Chris Holba when a Tyler Osik base hit to left field scored a pair of early Knight runs. Then with men on second and third, a wild pitch from Holba produced UCF’s third run of the game.
Jake Washer’s tenth double of the season brought Dwanya Williams-Sutton home from second base to score ECU’s first run of the game. Luis Ferrer was then lifted after loading the bases in the bottom of the first and Thad Ward entered to put out the fire for UCF.
The fourth seeded Pirates scored again in the second inning on Turner Brown’s 23rd RBI of the year on a base hit to right. That brought Alec Burleson home from second base to cut the Knight lead to 3-2. Then Spencer Brickhouse slapped a base hit into centerfield to tie the game at 3-3.
Drew Henrickson’s 16th RBI of the year on a triple to right scored Connor Litton from second base and gave ECU their first lead of the day at 4-3. Then Brady Lloyd drove a sacrifice fly to centerfield and Henrickson avoided the tag at home plate to put the Pirates up by two runs at 5-3.
UCF scored again in the fourth when Ray Alejo singled to center and Hernandez scampered home from second base to cut the ECU lead to one.
Brickhouse’s leadoff double off the left field wall followed by a Jake Washer seeing eye single through the left side of the UCF infield got the festivities underway in the bottom of the seventh for ECU. Then with the bases loaded, Henrickson’s three-run double to deep right centerfield scored three runs in an 8-4 contest.
