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Baseball: AAC Tournament
Pirates blast UCF in opener

May 24, 2017 By Bonesville Staff Leave a Comment

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East Carolina’s Evan Kruczynski recoils to fire a pitch during the Pirates’ AAC Tournament first-round matchup with Central Florida Tuesday night, May 23, 2017, in Clearwater, FL. The senior lefthander hurled six solid innings and got credit for ECU’s win over the top-seeded Knights. (Photo by Brian Bailey. View Brian’s game one photo gallery…)

CLEARWATER, FL — East Carolina got an effective start from Evan Kruczynski and gave him plenty of run support in a 14-3 win over top-seeded Central Florida in the first round of the American Athletic Conference Tournament on Tuesday night at Spectrum Field.

The eighth-seeded Pirates (30-27) meet fourth-seeded South Florida (41-15) at 7 p.m. Thursday.

“Proud of Kruz,” said ECU coach Cliff Godwin. “I didn’t think he had his best stuff. They were tough on him. They fouled off a lot of pitches.”

The senior left-hander rested during a series at Connecticut that concluded Saturday. He allowed eight hits against the Knights (38-19) with two runs, one earned, in six innings. Kruczynski (4-2) struck out three without a walk. Tyler Smith pitched the seventh and eighth for ECU with three whiffs in the seventh. Davis Kirkpatrick checked the Knights in the ninth with a pair of strikeouts.

A three-run homer to right by Charlie Yorgen gave the Pirates a 3-2 lead in the top of the third inning. Drew Henrickson was hit by a pitch with one out and Brady Lloyd walked with two away before Yorgen connected with a full-count pitch from UCF starter Trent Thompson (0-2).

“Charlie hit a change-up,” Godwin said. “We had a lot of guys hitting tonight.”

Luke Hamblin and Kyle Marsh had doubles for the Knights as UCF took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Singles by Matthew Mika, Ryan Crile, Anthony George and an error on the Pirates allowed the Knights to extend their lead to 2-0 in the second.

UCF overcame a 7-1 deficit to defeat the Pirates 8-7 in Greenville on April 13, the start of a three-game sweep by the Knights.

“We knew we needed to keep scoring runs,” Godwin said.

Travis Watkins walked with one out to start a three-run fifth for ECU. Spencer Brickhouse followed with a single to right field. Turner Brown had a two-run double and scored on a throwing error as the ball went out of play as Brown slid into third.

Dusty Baker was hit by a pitch and Yorgen singled before Watkins delivered a two-run double for a 9-2 Pirates lead in the sixth.

ECU manufactured a run in the seventh after Brown walked and Dwanya Williams-Sutton had a single to left. Henrickson had a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third. Brown came home on a ground out by Baker.

The Knights picked up a run in the eighth to pull within 10-3 as Marsh doubled and scored on a single by Rylan Thomas.

Eric Tyler singled to open a four-run ninth for the Pirates. Brown drew a walk before Tyler scored on a hit by Williams-Sutton. Henrickson and Lloyd had RBI singles.

ECU’s last run came as pinch hitter Nick Barber hit into a fielder’s choice that allowed Henrickson to score.

Watkins and Williams-Sutton each went 3-for-5 as the Pirates outhit UCF, 15-11. Yorgen and Brickhouse each had two hits.

View Brian Bailey’s ECU-UCF Photo Gallery

Postgame Audio: Cliff Godwin, Evan Kruczynski, Charlie Yorgen

View Complete AAC Tournament Schedule on Championship Central

VIEW ECU’S 2017 BASEBALL SCHEDULE

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