GREENVILLE — Houston held on Sunday to complete an American Athletic Conference sweep at East Carolina with a 6-5 win.
Trailing 6-2, the Pirates loaded the bases in the ninth on walks to Connor Litton, Dusty Baker and Chandler Jenkins before a two-run double to right by Bryant Packard cut the margin to 6-4.
A sacrifice fly by Jeremy Whitehead pulled the Pirates within 6-5 before Spencer Brickhouse lined out to right to end the game with the potential tying run at second.
ECU took a 2-0 lead in the fourth on an RBI infield single by Andrew Henrickson and a sacrifice fly by Alec Burleson.
The Cougars answered with a pair of runs in the fifth on a ground out RBI by Grayson Padgett and a run-scoring single through the left side by Connor Hollis to tie the score at 2.
Houston used bunts and a blast to take a 6-2 lead with four runs in the seventh. Wendell Champion led off the frame with a bunt single and he moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Kyle Lovelace.
Hollis singled through the right side to bring in the go-ahead run. Jared Triolo walked before Joe Davis hit a three-run homer to left.
The Cougars (28-16, 13-5 AAC) outhit ECU (30-12, 8-7) by an 8-5 margin. Houston played errorless defense while the Pirates were charged with four miscues.
Brayson Hurdsman got the win as Ryan Ross (0-3) absorbed his second loss of the series.
The timing of the series found ECU in the midst of exams and the Pirates were without sophomore right-hander Chris Holba (9-0), who contracted a virus that has been going through the team before his scheduled start on Friday night.
ECU returns to action at Tulane of Friday at 7:30 p.m.
The radio announcer said at one point yesterday that Holba was ready to go. That surprised me, because I would’ve thought Godwin would’ve started him yesterday, and since they don’t play this week, the normal rotation could’ve resumed next weekend. Even if he was dressed and on the bench, I have to assume that Holba was too weakened to go; the Pirates could’ve used a salvaging win.
I think winning the conference regular season is paramount to hosting a regional, and that’s not going to happen unless we sweep our final three conference series, and Houston & USF totally collapse. They only have two conference series left. The last and only time we hosted a regional in Clark-LeClair was in 2009 when we edged out Rice for the C-USA regular season crown, Without doing research, I can’t tell you who won the C-USA tournament, but we didn’t. We had a great regional victory over South Carolina, but subsequently lost in the super regional @ to UNC. I can’t see us hosting a regional finishing 3, 4 or 5 in the regular season in the AAC. Houston & USF also now hold series victory tiebreakers over us if we tie them for 1 or 2. Losing 5 out of 6 to them has put a damper on an otherwise great season!!