Monmouth Comes Back to Upset ECU 8-5 on Sunday in Greenville
Monmouth scored five runs in the seventh inning to erase a five run ECU lead and then scored two more in the ninth to upset (9)ECU 8-5 in game three of their weekend set Sunday afternoon in Greenville.
Ryan Lillie(1-1) got the victory for Monmouth while Jordan McCrum picked up his first save of the season. Evan Voliva came on in the seventh and was credited with the loss for ECU to fall to 1-1 on the season.
Pirate head coach Cliff Godwin said he wasn’t surprised by Monmouth’s late game heroics on Sunday.
“I knew they were better than their record was. I sensed it in the dugout when we were up 5-1 that our guys kind of got off the button a little bit,” Godwin said,, “Another great lesson for our guys. Just because the stats, they hadn’t won a game, this guy is hitting zero. A lot of guys got some pretty swings off some pretty good relievers today.”
“Our guys felt like they could coast through it at the end and ultimately that falls on me so we’ll continue to get better at that,” said Godwin.
"I appreciate the way our guys battled even into the ninth inning to get a guy on base, but we made a couple of boneheaded mistakes. Rider is celebrating the double he hit and the guy kicked the ball and he could have been on third base. The next pitch was thrown to the back stop so that was a run.Then Bryson got doubled up off the hit and run and now it's just a one run game. The little things like that if you want to win we've got to get better at which falls on me. It's not their fault, it's my fault.
The Pirates had picked up early on Sunday afternoon where they left off on Saturday and Friday with a pair of big wins. It looked early in the game like ECU(5-2) was going to get the sweep.
Ryder Giles’ bases loaded double to right in the bottom of the second inning scored three quick ECU runs. It was his first RBI as a Pirate.
“I was just trying to drive the guys in. It was two outs and I just tried to put a good swing on the ball and get on top of the plate and shoot something the other way,” said Giles who also saw action as a reliever late in the game, “We’ve got confidence in everybody in the bull pen. Everybody was ready, we made good pitches they just put good swings on the ball and stuff happens.”
One inning later Thomas Francisco homered off of right-hander Tyler Ksiazek to expand the ECU lead to 4-zip.
Then in the top of the fourth inning, Monmouth(1-5) got into the act when a Robbie Holmes grounder to third brought in a run to cut the ECU lead to 4-1.
ECU’s lead increased to 5-1 when Francisco homered to right field for the second time in the game in the bottom of the sixth.
But in the top of the seventh, Monmouth did the bulk of their damage. They scored five runs o a pair of doubles from Colin McCreary and JD Andreessen, a base hit from Kyle Norman and a wild pitch that scored another run
Then in the ninth inning, Zach Schild homered to right field bringing home a pair of Monmouth runs that ultimately put the game away.
“Our goal was to win the game and it didn’t happen. The team goals are what’s the most important thing,” said Francisco, “Today showed that we can’t overlook anybody. We have Air Force coming in tomorrow, so we have to be ready to come in tomorrow and get things going.”
