ECU Shuts Out Marist 5-0 on Friday
Nationally ranked ECU picked up their second straight victory with a 5-0 win over Marist in game one of a weekend series at Clark-LeClair Stadium on Friday.
Brady Lloyd had three hits to lead the Pirates to go along with two hits each from Lane Hoover, Spencer Brickhouse and Jake Washer.
Jake Agnos was solid going seven innings and 110 pitches, giving up just four hits with ten strikeouts to get the win on the mound for ECU to improve to 2-1 on the season. Skylar Phicardo fell to 0-3 with the loss for Marist who dips to 4-6 with the loss.
“I thought I did a good job of settling down as the game went on. I got behind a lot of guys early in the game,” said Agnos, “I think if I can get rid of those I can go eight or nine innings. Just get rid of the second or third inning and I could probably go the whole game.”
“I’m glad I got to settle down and just let the defense work and the offense put up five runs,” Agnos stated, “As the game went on, I was just waiting for them to have a big inning and I’m glad I was able to keep them at zero.”
After a slow start, the ECU got things going in the fourth inning when Brady Lloyd’s pop fly to right brought Jake Washer home for a 1-0 lead.
Three straight hits in the fourth led to a Alec Burleson double to right field. Lane Hoover scampered home for the second run of the day. Then Thomas Francisco’s chopper to second base scored another run for his sixth RBI of the season. That was followed by a Jake Washer RBI to right that made it 4-0.
“In the game we didn’t string enough bats together but we got stronger towards the middle to the end. We put some bats together and got some runs across,” Alec Burleson said, “Agnos pitched his butt off. When they don’t score any runs it’s a lot easier to win so that was good for us.”
Burleson said his hamstring feels really good and hopefully he will be able to continue to improve as the weekend progresses. He talked about what this win does for his ball club heading into Saturday.
“It was nice. Coming off a win at Ole Miss it was a big win for us. We just have to play ourselves,” said Burleson, “It doesn’t matter who is in the other dugout. We just have to play baseball the way ECU baseball was always meant to be so it was just good to be able to do that.”
ECU(10-5) added to their lead in the sixth inning on a Spencer Brickhouse base hit to left centerfield that allowed Bryant Packard to score to make it 5-0 and the Pirates were able to hold on from there.
CLIFF NOTES
ECU head coach Cliff Godwin was pleased to pick up the Friday victory heading into game two against the Red Foxes on Saturday. He talked about Jake Agnos' Friday’s win along with a little bit about the road win against Ole Miss on Wednesday.
“I thought Jake battled through some wildness early and I thought he pitched better as the game went on,” said Godwin.
“I thought his sixth and seventh innings were two of his best innings.’ “He definitely attacked the strike zone more than he has done in the past. We still want him to continue to do that. I though his pitch count was a little high from what we wanted.”
“Our guys, I thought they played more like themselves beginning on Wednesday. It started with Jake Kuchmaner. I thought offensively we put some very good at bats together. That was a very good pitcher for Ole Miss who will probably go into their rotation at some point so Pack and Brickhouse carried us but it was kind of up and down the lineup today.”
“Friday night starter is just another day so you guys need to just stop talking about it. We going to go day by day with our pitching staff. I don’t know if Jake will pitch next Friday. I know that Jake pitched today, I know Tyler Smith will pitch tomorrow. I don’t know who will pitch on Sunday, I don’t know who will pitch Tuesday or next Friday against Maryland. What day, it doesn’t matter. We just need to be a great pitching staff.”
“If you know baseball, you know today the umpire had a pitcher’s strike zone which is good because with a guy like Jake Agnos, we’ll take a pitcher’s strike zone when Jake is pitching. But it takes some time to kind of figure that out and that guy did a good job of moving the ball in and out and changing speeds on us.”
