ECU Gets 40th Win in a 4-3 Victory Over Campbell
East Carolina came up big in the bottom of the ninth Tuesday night when Brady Lloyd’s walk-off bunt single allowed Christian Jayne to score the winning run as the 7th ranked Pirates beat Campbell 4-3 in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Evan Voliva improved to 5-3 with the win for ECU while Wyatt Tyson fell to 1-2 with the loss.
“I thought it was kind of funny because knowing what we were going to do and they were setting up for the double play so the double play wasn't going to happen. I knew to put it down and C.J. was coming hard so it was easy right there,” said Lloyd.
It was the Pirates’ fortieth win, a feat that ECU(40-12/18-3 AAC) has now accomplished fifteen times. It was Cliff Godwin’s first time reaching that milestone during the regular season. ECU joins Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, UCLA, and UC Santa Barbara in this year's forty win club.
“First time forty win regular season so that’s pretty special,” Godwin told PirateIllustrated.com, “We always talk about that being one of our goals so we’ve knocked down two of our goals right now. We won the regular season conference and we got forty wins. We’ve never have forty wins in the regular season for me as the head coach so it’s pretty awesome. My hat’s off to our guys and our support staff.”
Godwin likened the Tuesday crowd in Clark-LeClair Stadium to a postseason type atmosphere.
“It felt like a regional game and a regional crowd. Every pitch there at the end - first and third with one out. We knew they were going to try to safety SAC and Voliva stuffing in heaters in on him trying to get him to pop it up and we execute that,” said Godwin afterward, “Then Voliva gets the next guy out. The more times they can be in those situations, the more confidence they’re going to have to be able to execute stuff like that.”
Campbell(29-19/16-7) got on the scoreboard first in the second inning when Zach Minnick’s doubled off the wall in left centerfield and Grant Harris scored from second to give the Camels a 1-0 lead.
Bryson Worrell tied the game at 1-1 with a home run in the bottom of the third inning that sailed over the left field wall.
The Camels went back up by a run on a Collin Wolf double to right center that scored a run from second base in the top of the sixth. Zach Minnick then walked in a run to give Campbell a two-run lead at 3-1.
But the Pirate bats heated up in the bottom of the sixth when Christian Jayne homered to right. He talked about how it all happened.
“Anytime there are runners in scoring position, they’re going to throw breaking balls so honestly, I went up there and just sold out to it and luckily I got one that was up and I was able to do some damage.”
Then Lloyd’s hit in the bottom of the ninth after Thomas Francisco was hit by a pitch, Ryder Giles walked and Chandler Jenkins got on base with a hit to centerfield, did the trick.
The Pirates resume action Thursday night when they open a three game AAC series to close out the regular season conference slate against Memphis. Game time is at 6:30 p.m.
