Bryant Packard slugged a pair of home runs to go along with a three-run double and Chris Holba was stellar on the mound again to remain undefeated in leading ECU to a 15-2 Friday night game one victory over USF.
Packard had a career game with five RBI to keep his hitting streak going at eleven games. Chandler Jenkins’ grand slam and a homer from Bryson Worrell added eighth inning home runs just for good measure.
"I wasn't aware of the streak but I was just trying to stick to our approach and put some good bat on the ball," Packard said.
Holba(8-0) gave up only a pair of runs in six innings of work for ECU on nine hits in 90 pitches before Zach Barnes and eventually West Covington came on in relief.
“Something that we’re trying to establish as a pitching staff is the mentality that we’re going to attack guys,” said Holba, “When you talk about the law of averages, on their best hitters, I want to be in the best position possible for them to not get their best swing off.”
Shane McClanahan gave up six runs on four hits in only three innings of work and suffered the loss to fall to 4-4 for South Florida (21-13/5-5 AAC).
“I’m just proud of them. You’re facing a guy who is going to be a high draft pick and I thought we put together a lot of quality at-bats,” ECU head coach Cliff Godwin said afterward, “Packard came up with a big double in the fourth that cleared the bases and we just kept going.”
“I didn’t think Chris had his best stuff but they’re really good offensively,” said Godwin, “To keep them to only two runs was very impressive. Barnes was good, Covey was good and we played good defense behind those guys.”
The Bulls got on the scoreboard first when Garrett Zeck homered into the left field jungle to give USF a 1-0 lead.
ECU(26-7/5-2 AAC) struck back with four runs in the bottom of the second inning when a bases loaded walk produced the first run. Then Bryant Packard doubled to right center and three Pirate runners scampered home to make the score 4-1.
A pair of ECU sac flies in the bottom of the third extended the Pirate lead. Then a Bryant Packard homer in the bottom of the fourth and a Jake Washer double brought home another run to put ECU up by a touchdown.
Tyler Dietrich doubled down the left field line to score a USF run in the top of the sixth inning to make it 8-2.
Then Packard was at it again in the bottom of the sixth when he hammered his second homer of the contest. Then in case that wasn’t enough, Spencer Brickhouse doubled to score Jake Washer and put ECU up by eight
The two teams resume action on Saturday with a game two first pitch scheduled for 4 o’clock.
