With Lane Hoover on third base in the bottom of the tenth, Christian Smallwood’s bouncer to left field gave ECU a walk-off 3-2 opening night home victory over Rhode Island Friday night in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Both teams generated six hits with ECU leaving seven stranded and Rhode Island stranding five. Cam Colmore(1-0) picked up the win for ECU while right-hander Ryan Thwitchell(0-1) absorbed the loss for Rhode Island(0-1)
“Young guys think winning college games is easy and it’s really hard. I knew they’d be well coached. Their pitchers just gave us fits all night. I thought we were a little anxious offensively, but I’m really happy we won,” ECU head coach Cliff Godwin said, “I’m not going to be unhappy with a win and we’ll take that win and run with it.”
Rhode Island loaded the bases in the top of the ninth inning before Cam Colmore came in with one out to pitch them into a double-play and end the threat.
“Definitely not an easy situation for Cam, but the guy is a sixth year senior. He’s been in the fire,” said Godwin, “So happy if we have an opportunity to lose the game I can put my head down at night because that guy is out there.”
Godwin was relieved to find a way, somehow, some way to generate a much needed win to open the season in Greenville.
“I’m relaxed and happy and glad we got one college baseball game in this season,” Godwin told PirateIllustrated.com after the game, “It just felt weird all day because we had been off from playing baseball for so long and to have game day it felt almost like the first game we coached here back in 2015 against UVA. We know our team but not really because we don’t know them against another team. Just happy that the guys put it on the line and we were able to get a win.”
Christian Smallwood went 1 for 1 and it was a big one in the clutch with the game on the line.
“I was just trying to get up there and put the ball in play. I knew the infield was in and the outfield was pretty shallow too so I was trying to be pretty aggressive and give us a chance to win,” said Smallwood, “I went down 0-2 and I knew I just had to compete up there. I was able to get one to bounce over his head so it worked out for us.”
“It’s a lot of momentum going into tomorrow,” Smallwood told PI, “You never want to play from behind in a series, so it’s definitely going to give us some confidence going into tomorrow even though we definitely didn’t play our best game and we’ve got more to show.”
After four scoreless innings, Bryson Worrell’s base hit up the middle in the bottom of the fifth inning scored Lane Hoover before a Thomas Francisco single to scored Worrell to give ECU a 2-0 lead.
In the sixth inning an Austin White double down the left field line for Rhode Island before a Josh Brodeur single to right tied the contest at 2-2.
Rhode Island then had the bases loaded in the top of the ninth inning when Colmore’s clutch pitching made the difference.
“That was huge when he got that double-play I think the sense in the dugout was that we’re definitely going to win this game for sure,” Smallwood said, “I think a lot of the guys thought the same thing.”
The two teams return for game two on Saturday for a 2 o’clock first pitch as ECU's opening weekend series continues.
