Brandon Riley’s three-run homer in the fourth did the bulk of the damage in (9)North Carolina’s 6-2 victory over (25)East Carolina Wednesday night in Clark-LeClair Stadium.
After Cody Roberts reached on a throwing error to first base by short stop Turner Brown, Zack Gahagan scored on the play. Then with two men on base, Brandon Riley torched a Chris Holba pitch for a three-run bomb and suddenly it was 5-1.
“We didn’t make a play. If you make the play there I think we give up one instead of four,” said ECU head coach Cliff Godwin, “We’ve got to stop giving up crooked numbers if we’re going to win at a very high level. Their pitching staff is very good. I didn’t think our at-bats were great but they just stuffed us once their relievers got in there.”
“If we put guys on, then we don’t have to be perfect defensively and we weren’t tonight.”
ECU pitching wasn’t at their best Wednesday night as Coach Godwin reflected on after the game.
“Too many walks and free passes like has been the story for us. We’ve got to get better at that and we’re not going to stop talking about it just because we’re doing it,” Godwin said, “We’ve got to get better, we’ve got to figure out how to do it, we need to play better defense and we need to put better quality at-bats together when you face really good pitching."
Rodney Hutchison Jr. picked up the win for UNC to move to 3-1, Josh Hiatt got his eighth save of the year while Jacob Wolfe took the loss for ECU to fall to 2-2.
Brian Miller got North Carolina on the scoreboard first in the top of the third inning when his ground out allowed Brandon Riley to score for a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of that same inning, Charlie Yorgen’s double down the left field line tied the game when Dusty Baker crossed home plate for ECU.
The Pirates answered in the bottom of the fourth after the UNC home run when a Bryce Harman single to right allowed Eric Tyler to score to trim the Carolina lead to 5-2.
But the Tar Heels struck again in the sixth when a Riley single allowed Kyle Datres to score to make it 6-2 and the Pirates weren’t able to generate enough runs to mount a real threat.
With the win North Carolina moves to 16-5 while East Carolina falls to 14-8 on the season.
