ECU baseball wrapped up its weekend series against Marist with a sweep at home in Clark-LeClair Stadium. ECU started it off with a 5-0 shutout win in the series opener Friday:
- Jake Agnos continues to dominate batters. Agnos went seven scoreless innings on Friday with 10 strikeouts and just four hits allowed. That was the third straight game with at least 10 strikeouts for Agnos. Agnos struck out at least one batter in each of the seven innings and struck out more than one in the first, second and fifth innings. Six of those strikeouts were looking so hitters were just baffled.
- Alec Burleson usually starts Friday games for the Pirates but pitched in relief during ECU’s win over Ole Miss the Wednesday before, which may be his role going forward. Agnos usually has been starting on Saturday games but had no problems moving up a day.
- “Nothing changes, it’s just a day of the week. I’m glad they gave me the opportunity and hopefully I can perform and do well in that, but my goal and every pitcher’s goal is to go out there and let our team win. So it doesn’t matter what day I’m pitching on,” Agnos told reporters after the game.
- Zach Barnes and Cam Colmore had it easy after Agnos going deep in the game, each throwing a scoreless inning of relief each.
- ECU recorded 13 hits as a team, and had four players with multi-hit games. Those players included Lane Hoover, Spencer Brickhouse, Jake Washer, and Brady Lloyd.
ECU won the series with walk-off 4-3 win over Marist in 12 innings on Saturday:
- It was interesting to see Spencer Brickhouse played left field while Packard, who has usually been in left field, played in right field.
- Tyler Smith’s line: 4.2 innings, eight hits, three strikeouts but three earned runs. Smith has gone 20.1 innings pitched in four starts, allowing 14 runs and 26 hits.
- The bullpen was fantastic, going 7.1 innings of scoreless relief pitching. Evan Voliva went 2.1 innings, Burleson went 3.0 innings and Sam Lanier threw 2.0 innings and got the win.
- The Pirates didn’t get a hit until two outs left in the third inning when Packard singled to right field.
- Turner Brown takes 0-2 pitch to left field for a solo home run, his first of the season.
- Four double plays constantly killed ECU momentum. Seth Caddell hit into one in the second inning with runners on first and second. Burleson grounded into one in the fourth inning with runners on first and second and no outs. Packard grounded into one in the fifth inning after a leadoff single. Packard added another double play in the sixth inning with two runners on and one out in an inning where one run scored already.
- Brady Lloyd had a stolen base in three straight games after recording one in Saturday’s game.
- With the game tied 3-3, ECU had its top of the lineup come to the plate but went down in order in the bottom of the ninth inning. Each batter swung at the first pitch.
- Christian Smallwood got the big walk-off double to score Turner Brown and win the game in the 12th inning. Smallwood had struggled in limited action prior to Saturday’s game.
- “ I told the team after the game that nobody deserved to have success in that situation more than Christian Smallwood. I don’t have the crystal ball to say when it’s going to happen but if you show up and do what you’re supposed to do all the time then good things will happen to you,” ECU head coach Cliff Godwin said.
ECU completed the sweep of Marist with a 10-5 win on Sunday:
- Four ECU players had multiple hits. Bryant Packard went 2-for-3 with a home run on Sunday. Turner Brown had his second straight 3-hit game, going 3-for-5 with 2 triples. Brady Lloyd, Thomas Francisco and Ryder Giles all each
- Cam Colmore goes 3.1 innings of relief and gives up just one run and no walks while earning the win. Zach Barnes threw an inning and Giles threw two scoreless innings to round out a good series for the ECU bullpen.
- Trey Benton continues to struggle and didn’t go deep into the game. Benton lasted 2.2 innings, giving up four earned runs on five hits.
- “I thought we pitched good overall for the entire weekend, we played good defense this weekend, and we had a lot of tough at-bats. Today we needed to be very offensive and I thought we were very offensive up and down the lineup,” Godwin told reporters on Sunday.
- “It’s tough to win baseball games. I know everybody thinks East Carolina is supposed to beat Marist. Well, Marist is a very good program,” Godwin said after Saturday’s win, a close game that ECU has been in many times already this season.
ECU managed to go 4-1 overall through the week, losing only to Mississippi State. The Pirates now have a trip to Durham to play newly top-25 Duke on Tuesday before traveling to College Park to play against Maryland.