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Audio: Brian Bailey
Show |
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 The
Brian Bailey Show airs on Pirate
Radio 1250 on Mondays at
 6:30
p.m. Brian's guests this week
were ECU baseball coach Cliff
Godwin (right), Farmville
Central basketball coach Larry
Williford and WNCN sportscaster
Todd Gibson:
Replay
show... |
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View Pirate Radio
1250 Programming
Lineup |
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BASEBALL |
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Cavs avoid sweep
with 4-2 win |
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA
— Virginia got
off to a good start
Sunday and avoided
being swept in a
three-game series
with East Carolina
by dealing the
Pirates their first
loss of the season,
4-2. Adam Haseley
led off the bottom
of the first inning
with a double for
the Cavaliers.
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More... |
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Next:
Elon at ECU |
Wednesday, 4 pm |
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BASEBALL |
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Pirates take series |
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA
— Luke Bolka
had a 3-run homer
and finished with
four RBIs to lead
East Carolina to a
6-1 victory at
Virginia on Saturday
for a series win
over the defending
College World Series
champions. The
Pirates improved to
6-0 and go for the
series sweep at 1
p.m. today.
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BASKETBALL |
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Cincinnati holds off Pirates |
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 GREENVILLE
— East Carolina trimmed a
16-point Cincinnati lead to
56-54 with five minutes
remaining before absorbing a
65-56 American Athletic
Conference loss from the
Bearcats before 4,841 in
Williams Arena at Minges
Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.
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Story & pictures... |
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Pictured: ECU's
Kentrell Barkley
drives against
Cincinnati on
Saturday. The
freshman swingman
played all 40
minutes and had 14
points, 13 rebounds
and six assists.
(Photo by Al Myatt.) |
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Next: ECU at USF |
Wednesday, 9 pm |
ESPNU |
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BASEBALL |
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Pirates rally to defeat 2015 champs |
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA
— East
Carolina ended a
nine-game losing
streak to Virginia
with an 8-5 win in
10 innings over the
defending College
World Series
champions on Friday.
The Pirates pushed
across a tying run
in the top of the
ninth on a sacrifice
fly by Charlie
Yorgen before
scoring three runs
in the 10th.
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BASEBALL |
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Challenge escalates for Pirates |
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 East
Carolina's baseball team is off to a
4-0 start with three wins over
Longwood last weekend and an 11-2
victory over North Carolina A&T on
Tuesday. The circumstances will be
more challenging this weekend as the
Pirates visit Virginia
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More
from Al Myatt...
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BASKETBALL |
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Tyson lifts Pirates
to win at Tulane |
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NEW ORLEANS — B.J.
Tyson led four East
Carolina players in
double figures with
22 points as the
Pirates stopped a
six-game losing
streak with a 79-73
American Athletic
Conference win at
Tulane on Wednesday
night.
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Next: Cincinnati at
ECU | Saturday, 12
pm | ESPNU |
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By
Brian Bailey
©2016 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
VIEW MOBILE
ALPHA VERSION OF THIS PAGE
East Carolina baseball coach Cliff Godwin wants to
host an NCAA regional. He wants to host a Super Regional, with the
ultimate goal of going to Omaha and the College Baseball World Series.
Taking two out of three games from the defending
national champions doesn’t guarantee anything. It does, however, set the
tone that this ECU team feels it can compete with any other team in the
nation.
Godwin’s group is a loose bunch. They seem to enjoy
one another and certainly weren’t intimidated one bit at Virginia this
past weekend.
After
taking the first game in extra innings on Friday, the
Pirates had two shots at taking the series.
If anyone thought Friday’s win was a fluke, the
Pirates'
dominating 6-1 win on Saturday certainly proved
otherwise.
Sunday was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn’t so
much
the 4-2 loss, rather the five errors that East
Carolina committed. ECU out-hit UVa 8-6 but the Pirates just couldn’t
overcome all the miscues, which isn’t a normal trait of the Cliff Godwin
coached club.
“You just can’t make five errors and win,” said
Godwin after Sunday’s loss. “We left the bases loaded with one out in
one inning. If we at least score one, then it’s a different game late.
Still, we brought the tying run to the plate in the 9th and had a shot.”
Taking two out of three from the fourth-ranked team
in the nation and the defending national champs vaulted this ECU team
into the national spotlight on Monday.
The Pirates were ranked as high as 16th in the polls.
That ranking came from D1Baseball.com. The Pirates were also ranked 25th
by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers and by Baseball America.
Those were the rewards from two great wins over the
reigning College World Series champs.
These Pirates like one another. This team likes to
have fun. Godwin is hard-nosed, just like his mentor Keith LeClair. But
like LeClair, Godwin also likes a joke or two.
At home plate before Saturday’s game I had the camera
rolling as Godwin and Virginia coach Brian O’Connor swapped lineups with
the umpires. O’Connor commented on ECU bringing media to the game.
Godwin smiled and told the Virginia coach that I was really there for
the basketball game that night, when UVa hosted rival North Carolina.
We all laughed, but Godwin was half right. It’s well
documented that I am a huge Virginia BASKETBALL fan, dating back to the
days of former ECU Director of Athletics Terry Holland’s days with the
Cavaliers when I was a youngster growing up in Virginia.
What a day it turned out to be! An East Carolina
baseball win and a Cavalier victory over UNC truly made for a day to
remember.
In that same pregame huddle O’Connor asked about
“Cliff’s Cab.” Godwin spends his Monday mornings toting students to
class in an expanded golf cart to drum up support for the baseball team.
O’Connor was genuinely interested and both coaches laughed about the
concept.
I never heard a ground rule discussed. You see, you
never know what goes on in these huddles.
Though disappointed, Godwin saw something to build on
in Sunday’s loss, despite all of the miscues.
“They fight,” Godwin added. “They fight. They don’t
quit. That’s what we preach all the time. Obviously, I am proud of them
for coming up here and winning the series. It’s just disappointing that
we had an opportunity to sweep them today and we let it slip away.”
Elon is up next, and then the Pirates welcome
Southeast Louisiana, Tennessee and Maryland to town for the annual Keith
LeClair Classic.
I asked about the upcoming weekend and got the answer
I expected.
“Coach LeClair wouldn’t want us to be thinking about
anything but Elon,” Godwin said. “That’s where our focus is, to win
every inning against Elon on Wednesday.”
Coach LeClair couldn’t have said it better himself.
BB
