Cougars have ECU's number

From electronic and staff reports
©2013 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

HOUSTON — East Carolina started the Conference USA baseball tournament the same way it started league play during the regular season, losing to Houston in Houston.

The Cougars, the only C-USA entry to sweep a series from the Pirates, overcame a fast start by ECU at Rice's Reckling Park for a 9-4 win Thursday afternoon.

The Cougars have six straight wins over the Pirates in the C-USA tournament.

ECU (30-25) plays Tulane (28-28) at noon on Friday. After a 1-5 start in league play, ECU recovered to win 13 of its next 18 C-USA games. Similar resilience is needed against the Green Wave.

“We’ve got to bounce back," said Pirates coach Billy Godwin. "All we can control is coming out and beating Tulane and going 1-1. … That’s all we can control. We can’t look back. We’ve got to look ahead. Our guys are focused. We’ve had our back to the wall a lot this year, so we just got to come back and win and see what happens in the other game.”

The Pirates, seeded third in the C-USA event, opened the Houston game with singles from Bryan Bass, Drew Reynolds, Zach Houchins and Chase McDonald en route to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.

Cougar starter Austin Pruitt (10-5) recovered to allow just one run the rest of the way.

Justin Montemayor, the C-USA Freshman of the Year, led the comeback for sixth-seeded Houston (36-20) with four hits and a pair of RBIs. Getting two hits each for Houston, which faces second-seeded Southern Miss (29-25) at 4 p.m. today, were Josh Vidales, Jacob Campbell and Landon Appling.

The Cougars outhit ECU, 13-12.

Sophomore right-hander Jeff Hoffman (6-7) took the loss for the Pirates. He allowed six runs on nine hits over five and one-third innings. Hoffman stuck out three and walked two. Jake Harris and Joseph Hughes saw action in relief for the Pirates.

The Cougars capped a four-run third with a two-run double by Montemayor. Houston scored two runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh before adding one run in the ninth.

Chris Gosik had an RBI single for the Pirates in the sixth.

Reynolds and Houchins each had three hits for ECU. The Pirates had one error. All of Houston's runs were earned.

“I thought Houston played extremely well.," Godwin said "We didn’t kick it around or anything. They created some big hits at some big times. We had a couple of plays we had an opportunity to make and we didn’t make them, and it was the difference of the game.”

PAGE UPDATED 05/24/13 02:28 AM.

Copyright © Bonesville.net. All rights rights reserved. No content on this site may be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any fashion without explicit written permission from the editor. Information from Bonesville staff members, East Carolina University, Conference USA and other sources was used in composing and/or compiling the articles and data on this site. This site is editorially independent and is not affiliated with East Carolina University or Conference USA. View Bonesville.net's privacy policy. For advertising or other information, e-mail editor@bonesville.net.