GREENVILLE - ECU loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth and Korey Anderson walked Luke Bolka to score Charlie Yorgan to give the Pirates a 5-4 Friday night win over Western Carolina on day one of the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville.
The Catamounts gave top 10 ECU all they could handle, but the Pirates came through late to seal the victory.
“You have to make big plays in big moments and that’s what our guys did tonight,” Coach Cliff Godwin said after the game.
“Jake (Agnos) has had some arm soreness back in the fall. He never got in a groove. Even in his two relief outings his command has been here and there and tonight it was an opportunity to come in a tough situation where he didn’t have time to warm up and he had to warm up in front of the other team. I don’t know how many strikeouts he had but that was as dominant stuff as I’ve seen in a long time.”
“Brick, battles. He’s probably one of the best two strike hitters I’ve seen. The guy just gets in there and competes. Wes Phillips didn’t have a great first at-bat and then to come in pick up that RBI was great to see.”
Joe Ingle gets the win to move to 2-0 on the season for East Carolina(6-3) while Dillon Bray(0-1) gets the loss for the Catamounts who fall to 4-4.
Western Carolina got on the board first 3-0 when Bryson Bowman homered on Evan Kruczynski who later went out of the game with a leg injury.
Agnos came on to pitch five innings, giving up no hits and punching out 11 Catamount batters on Friday.
Wes Phillips got East Carolina on the scoreboard on a single to right field in the fourth inning off WCU starter Bryan Sammons to score Luke Bolka. Spencer Brickhouse advanced to third where T.J. Riles singled up the middle to score Brickhouse to make it 3-2 Catamounts.
Brickhouse singled to right in the sixth inning scoring Luke Bolka to tie the game at 3-3.
Bolka then gave East Carolina a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the 7th inning on a sacrifice fly to centerfield that scored Turner Brown.
The Catamounts scored again in the top of the ninth frame to tie the game at 4-4.
Brickhouse and Yorgen went 2 for 4 while Bolka delivered a pair of RBI to lead the Pirates.
