For the second straight day, Houston got the better of nationally ranked ECU and came away with a 3-1 win Saturday evening in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Houston scored two early runs and got another run in the ninth that proved to be enough to take the series with one more game to be played between the two teams on Sunday.
Alec Burleson lasted nearly five innings on the mound for the Pirates but gave up five hits and a pair of runs to go along with four strikeouts before ever improving Davis Kirkpatrick came on for three innings of scoreless relief. Eventually Ryan Ross entered the game with Cougars on first and second and put out the fire with two outs in the top of the eighth.
But ECU was unable to capitalize in the ninth and the rest was academic.
Houston starter Aaron Fletcher gave up just one run in seven and a third innings of work to get the win to improve to 5-2 on the season. Joey Pulido picked up the save, pitching an inning and two thirds to close the deal.
“We didn’t play well today. Last night I went home and you can lay your head down and say we played well. Today we didn’t play like ourselves. We didn’t play good defense, we didn’t execute enough pitches on the mound,” said ECU head coach Cliff Godwin, “Offensively we made some dumb mistakes and didn’t stick with our plan.”
Godwin seemed a bit baffled with the nervous play of his ball club on Saturday.
“We did hit some balls hard, but we just didn’t play like ourselves. That’s tough for me to swallow. It’s almost like we played with pressure like we had to win today. Like it was life or death and that’s not the way you can play this game.”
Davis Kirkpatrick continued his solid relief play on Saturday as did Ryan Ross for the Pirates.
“Davis was really good and he gave us a chance to win. Ryan Ross came in in a big situation as well and got us out of it,” Godwin said, “Just not enough in all the phases. I was just disappointed in guys not playing like ourselves and we didn’t coach well either. It starts with me and we’ve got to do a better job coaching as well.”
Houston(28-16/12-5 AAC) scored a pair of runs in the second frame when Champion reached on a throwing error from ECU pitcher Alec Burleson and Tyler Bielamowicz scored. Then Grayson Padgett scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0.
The Pirates left a pair of runners stranded in the fifth before finally getting something cooking in the seventh inning when Spencer Brickhouse homered to right to trim the Houston lead to one.
But in the top of the ninth inning, Houston added an insurance run on a Hollis base knock to right field that brought Cooper Coldiron across home plate to make it 3-1 and ECU(30-11/8-6 AAC) was unable to score.
