East Carolina moved to 2-0 for the season with a ten-point 61-51 win over pesky North Carolina A&T(1-1) Monday night in Minges Coliseum.
B.J. Tyson and Caleb White led the Pirates with 13 points apiece and in the process White passed Brock Young to move into 7th place on the ECU all time scoring list.
It has been one of White's goals to finish in the top three or four all-time at ECU by season's end and Brock Young was in the arena to see White pass him on the list.
"He reminded me of it before the game. I had honestly forgot about it. It was one of my goals. I'm just going to try to play through it and if I finish there, I finish there,"White said after the game, "I think now I will probably pay a lot more attention to it now that I know where I am on the list since my goal is to try to finish in the top three."
The Pirates led by as much as 21 in the second half before the Aggies put on a bit of a comeback down the stretch and tried to make a game of it.
A&T guard Sam Hunt led the Aggies with 17 points and five assists to go along with seven points apiece from backcourt mate Eliel Gonzalez and Raymon Pratt.
"A solid win for the Pirates. I thought we really.defended well, rebounded well. That's what won the game. Offensively their zone bothered us a little bit. We didm 't shoot the ball very well," Jeff Lebo said after the game.
"We were up 21 with seven minutes to go, we kind of went through the motions the last seven minutes, but overall we did some good things particularly defensively. Jabari (Craig) was great rebounding. Eight offensive boards. I thought Caleb (White) was good. Foul trouble with Caleb in the first half hurt us. He's our best shooter out there but I thought Elijah (Hughes) came in there and gave us a big lift as a freshman and played very well. He's a guy we're going to count on shooting the basketball. Good team win for us and we're on to the next one."
ECU went on 15-6 run in the first seven minutes of the contest keyed by a pair of Caleb White three-pointers, a B.J. Tyson floater in the lane and an Elijah Hughes baseline jumper.Raquan Wilkins added to the early damage with a three-point bomb from the right wing.
Raquan Wilkins's three pointer and subsequent fast break jam combined with four Tyson free throws extended the Pirate lead to 26-9 at the 8:52 mark of the first period. Then Sam Hunt 3-pointer highlighted a nine-point A&T run that cut the ECU lead to 26-17 before Elijah Hughes knocked down a pair of jumpers for the Pirates in a 35-22 game at halftime.
Elijah Hughes led the Pirates with seven points at intermission and Sam Hunt had nine for the Aggies who were held to just 26 percent shooting in the first stanza.
The Pirates jumped out to a 47-28 lead in the first seven minutes before A&T cut the lead to 47-32 on an Andre Washington bucket at the eleven minute mark.
A pair of treys from Hughes and White extended the ECU lead to 21 with seven minutes to play before a Raymon Pratt trey and two Eliel Gonzalez drives for the Aggies trimmed the ECU lead to 13 with 4:44 remaining.
The Pirates hit just 34.6 percent from the floor including 6 of 20 from the arc while holding the Aggies to 33.3 percent shooting and just 5 of 19 from three-point land.
ECU dominated the glass to the tune of 47 to 33 and got 14 points off of 12 A&T turnovers despite turning the ball over 15 times themselves.
The Pirates now hit the road for a Thursday night encounter at Halton Arena against Charlotte. Game time is at 7 pm.
JEFF LEBO POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE
