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ECU Torches App. State 13-2 On Friday in the Keith LeClair Classic

ECU generated 13 runs on 10 hits and came away with a Friday win over Appalachian State.
ECU generated 13 runs on 10 hits and came away with a Friday win over Appalachian State. (PirateIllustrated.com photo)

East Carolina had little difficulty with Appalachian State Friday afternoon with a 13-2 win in the first round of the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville.

Connor Norby, Thomas Francisco and Alex Makarewicz all had multiple hits and scored multiple runs and Seth Caddell launched a two-run homer to lead the Pirates. Carter Spivey(1-0) picked up his first victory of the season for ECU while Tyler Tuthill fell to 1-1 with the loss for Appalachian State.

“We really didn’t have that many hits. We hit some balls hard. We had a good approach until the latter innings. We were able to get some more hits, but you can’t control hits,” ECU head coach Cliff Godwin told PirateIllustrated.com afterward.

“Ryder (Giles) hit a ball hard today as some other guys did but it’s right at somebody, so we just worry about hitting the ball hard and getting some guys on base and executing our approach,” said Godwin, “I thought we kept the chain together pretty good tonight.”

ECU starter Tyler Smith went three and a third innings on Friday giving up a pair of runs on two hits with with three strikeouts. Carter Spivey fanned three in 1.1 innings of work and Nick Logusch looked particularly good on the mound with six straight strikeouts in two innings.

“Logusch has just got a good heater. It plays up in the plate even if it’s 90 or 92 it’s really tough to hit and we have to face that in the fall,” said Caddell, “Teams don’t realize that. Every pitch he had was a competitive pitch. He wasn’t worried about what the score was and just getting after hitters.”

Caddell said he liked how East Carolina played overall after not as good an outing at the plate as a team in the loss to ODU.

“I thought it was really good. We had a really good game plan against the starter even though we didn’t have as good numbers off of him as it looked on paper, but I thought we stuck to our approach," Caddell said, "He threw like 94 pitches in five inning and he had 70 something after three innings. We stuck to it. We didn’t have a lot to show for it but it was a way better performance than we had the other night for sure.”

Luke Drumheller got Appalachian State on the scoreboard in the top of the third on a base hit to left field that allowed Hayden Cross to cross home plate.

(17)ECU answered in the bottom of the inning with an Alex Makarewicz double to right center that scored a run before Thomas Francisco scored on a Mountaineer balk from left-hander Tyler Tuthill. Then a Seth Caddell grounder to third brought Makarewicz in to make it 3-1 Pirates.

With the bases juiced in the top of the fourth, ASU(6-3) scored again on a Tyler Smith walk of Welch to score a run to make it 3-2.

The Pirate lead then grew to 5-2 when Seth Caddell launched centerfield homer off of Tuthill in the bottom of the fifth frame.

One inning later ECU(7-2) added a run on Bryson Worrell’s RBI single to first allowed Ryley Johnson to score on a throwing error from second baseman Luke Drumheller before adding another in the bottom of the seventh on a wild pitch to make it 7-2.

Three RBI singles in the eighth from Connor Norby, Thomas Francisco and Alex Makarewicz added three insurance runs before Ben Newton’s double down the right field line and a Garrett Chandler base knock added three more runs in a 13-2 contest.

ECU returns to action on Saturday in day two of the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville with the first pitch slated for 2 o’clock.

BOX SCORE

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