GREENVILLE — Evansville wasn’t playing poker on Friday in the NCAA regional opener at Clark-LeClair Stadium, but an ace and a jack keyed a 4-1 win over East Carolina.

The ace of the Aces, freshman left-hander Kenton Deverman, was masterful as he limited ECU to three hits over eight innings.

Kip Fougerousse provided what proved to be the winning margin in the third for Evansville (36-23) with a solo jack to left center for a 2-0 lead.

The blast allowed the Aces to maintain the lead in the fourth when Carter Cunningham had a solo homer for the top-seeded Pirates (43-16).

“Deverman did a really good job against us,” said ECU coach Cliff Godwin. “We didn’t really have an answer for him. We couldn’t put together multiple quality at-bats. He pitched his tail off.

“We pitched and played good enough defense. We weren’t able to do enough offensively.”

The regionals have a double-elimination format. The Pirates will seek to regroup for an elimination game with Wake Forest, which lost the Virginia Commonwealth, 1-0, later Friday.

The Pirates meet the second-seeded Deacons on Saturday at noon.

“There’s s lots of baseball to be played,” Godwin said. “We can look back to the 2019 regional. We lost to Quinnipiac (and won the regional after that loss in the opening game). … These guys will be ready to go tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of baseball left to play.”

Deverman had four strikeouts without a walk.

“He worked quick and kept us off-balance,” said Cunningham of Deverman. “We just weren’t able to make the adjustment on his heater. He was throwing our timing off a little bit.”

Deverman’s fast ball had a hopping quality.

“It gets a rise from the slot,” said Evansville coach Wes Carroll. “We get a lot of swings and misses and foul balls on it.”

Cunningham overcame a breeze blowing in from right field on his 15th homer of the season.

Brent Widder had a 2-run single up the middle for a 4-1 lead for the Aces in the ninth.

Southpaw Zach Root (6-1) was less than his best after a month’s absence for a hurt thumb prior to the American Athletic Conference Tournament last week.

Root started and went five innings, allowing two runs. Brendan Hord got the Aces on the board in the second with a sacrifice fly that brought in Fougerousse.

Root’s velocity diminished.

“I was mid-80s (miles per hour) in the fifth,” Root said. “That’s not me.”

The case could be made that the Pirates collectively weren’t themselves on Friday, leading to one of Evansville’s best wins ever.

The Aces play the Rams in the winners bracket on Saturday at 6 p.m.

The Pirates brought the potential tying run to the plate in the ninth but a fly out and a strikeout resulted in a save for Shane Harris.