Pirates finish on high note

From electronic and staff reports
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HOUSTON — East Carolina was simply playing for pride in its final game in the Conference USA Tournament on Saturday night against Southern Miss at Rice's Reckling Park, but that proved effective motivation as the Pirates rallied for an 8-7 win.

ECU (31-26), the third seed for the league tournament, had fallen out of contention for the title with losses to Houston and Tulane. The Pirates are not expected to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The Golden Eagles emerged from ECU's pool in the C-USA event and will play the host Owls at 2 p.m. today for the conference tournament title.

Southern Miss was in position to sweep its pool with a six-run sixth inning that produced a 6-2 lead but the Pirates answered with three runs in the seventh and three more in the eighth to make a winner out of senior Andy Smithmyer (3-1). Drew Reynolds notched his 14th save.

“I thought (Andy) Smithmyer did an outstanding job," said ECU coach Billy Godwin. "He was really good tonight. (Drew) Reynolds has been good for us all year.. We played all our seniors today, positionally, and got Smithmyer and (Jake) Harris in the game — pitching for pride. I’m really proud of the job he did coming in there. He hasn’t had the best year but he sure came in and nailed it down at the end.”

Smithmyer recorded four strikeouts in just one and two-thirds innings. Jake Winston (2-2) absorbed the loss for USM.

Bryan Bass drove in the tying run in the eighth with a hit and Reynolds brought in the go-ahead run with a single through the left side of the Golden Eagles infield. Zach Houchins had a sacrifice fly in the eighth for what proved to be the winning run as Southern Miss scored once in the ninth.

ECU took a 2-0 lead in the fourth. Reynolds and Houchins were hit by pitches from Southern Miss starter Paxton King before Chase McDonald's single loaded the bases. A walk to Chris Gosik forced home the first run of the game. Jack Reinheimer had an RBI single to give the Pirates a 2-0 advantage.

Michael Sterling had a two-run double and Nick Dawson had a bases-clearing two-bagger for three of USM's runs in the six-run sixth.

Reinheimer, Jay Cannon and Philip Clark had hits for the Pirates in the seventh. Sam King contributed a sacrifice fly.

Bass, Reinheimer, Cannon and Clark had two hits each for ECU in a 12-hit attack.

Doubles by Austin Roussel and Blake Brown got the Golden Eagles within a run in the ninth before Reynolds closed the game with a strikeout.

"I was really proud of their effort," Godwin said. "It would have been easy to fold when we were down and they battled back, which is what they’ve done the last 20 games or so."

The Pirates won 14 of their final 20 games.

PAGE UPDATED 05/26/13 04:19 AM.

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