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BASKETBALL RECRUITING |
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Pirates shore up backcourt |
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 Three-star
shooting guard Raquan Wilkins of
state champion Atlanta (GA) Westlake
High School entertained offers from
a number of schools before choosing
to join ECU coach Jeff Lebo's
recruiting class of 2016-17. ...
Thumbnail sketches... |
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BASEBALL |
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Pirates foiled in sweep bid |
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GREENVILLE — Houston took a 6-1
win at East Carolina on Sunday
to keep East Carolina from
sweeping a three-game American
Athletic Conference series. The
Cougars (17-10, 1-2 AAC) scored
three runs in the top of the
second in support of winning
pitcher Mitch Ullom (4-1), who
went seven and one-third
innings.
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More... |
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Next: ECU at Elon | Tuesday,
6:30 pm |
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BASEBALL |
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Boyd leads Pirates to series win |
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 GREENVILLE
— Jimmy Boyd lost a shutout bid
in the top of the ninth inning
but East Carolina won its
American Athletic Conference
series with Houston by topping
the Cougars 5-1 at Clark-LeClair
Stadium on Saturday. Freshman
Dwanya Williams-Sutton had three
RBIs and Joe Ingle got his
seventh save as ECU improved to
19-8 overall and 2-0 in the AAC
with a crowd of 2,966 looking
on.
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Story, pictures & audio... |
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Pictured: Winning pitcher Jimmy
Boyd focuses on his breathing
exercises in the ECU half of the
eighth inning during the
Pirates' 5-1 American Athletic
Conference win over Houston on
Saturday at Clark-LeClair
Stadium. (W.A. Myatt photo) |
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BASEBALL |
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Pirates take AAC opener |
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 GREENVILLE
— Bryce Harman, Parker Lamm and
Kirk Morgan had RBIs in support
of winning pitcher Evan
Kruczynski before Joe Ingle got
his sixth save as East Carolina
topped visiting Houston 3-1 in
the American Athletic Conference
opener for both clubs on Friday
night. A crowd of 2,603
converged on Clark-LeClair
Stadium.
...
Story, pictures & audio...
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Pictured: Both head coaches,
Todd Whitting of Houston (red
cap) and Cliff Godwin of East
Carolina, converse with home
plate umpire David Buck during
Friday's American Athletic
Conference opener at
Clark-LeClair Stadium following
an ejection of ECU's Bryce
Harman in the sixth inning for
an illegal slide. (W.A. Myatt
photo) |
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BASEBALL |
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Clean-cut Pirates host Houston |
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 East
Carolina baseball personnel
shaved their mustaches on
Thursday afternoon at
Clark-LeClair Stadium. The
Pirates grew mustaches in March
to support awareness of ALS,
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
Lou Gehrig's disease, the
infirmity that took the life of
former ECU baseball coach Keith
LeClair in 2006.
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More from Al Myatt...
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Pictured: WNCT-TV sports
director and Bonesville
columnist Brian Bailey ends
Mustache March for ECU skipper
Cliff Godwin. The Pirates
sported the mustaches during the
month of March to raise money
for ALS research. (Photo by W.A.
Myatt) |
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FOOTBALL RECRUITING |
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California juco bolsters line |
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 Almost
two months after signing day, East
Carolina has added some talent to
its offensive line. Hartnell
College's Branden Pena, a first-team
Golden Coast All-Conference
performer, has pledged to join the
Pirates for the 2016 season. ...
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sketches... |
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By
Brian Bailey
©2016 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
VIEW MOBILE
ALPHA VERSION OF THIS PAGE
Chalk up another series win for East Carolina as the
Pirates took two out of three from American Athletic Conference
preseason favorite Houston.
In a battle of nationally-ranked teams the Pirates
took the first two games of the series before falling on Sunday. The
series outcome was enough to boost ECU up three spots to No. 16 in the
D1Baseball.com rankings.
Sweeps are hard to come by, especially in a league as
tough as the American Athletic Conference. Still,
losing 6-1 on Sunday was a tough pill to swallow for
ECU coach Cliff Godwin.
“If you watched the game you know we made four
errors, we walked guys, made errors in the same inning, gave up multiple
runs,” Godwin said. “The only positive that I can take out of today was
the freshmen pitchers and Davis Kirkpatrick came in and threw zeroes…
you know those freshmen especially didn’t look like freshmen today.”
Pirate lead-off hitter Parker Lamm had a couple of
hits on Sunday, as did Dwanya Williams-Sutton. Still, the offensive
punch just wasn’t there in the series finale.
“We played pretty well the first two days,” said Lamm.
“I mean nobody likes to lose. It doesn’t matter if it’s going for a
sweep or not. I mean it’s frustrating because you got them right there,
but they’re a great team and they came ready to play today and we
didn’t.”
The Pirates
took the opener behind big Evan Kruczynski, who is
quickly rising to the top as far as pitchers in the American are
concerned. Kruz struck out a season-high eight batters in seven innings
of work on Friday in the 3-1 win.
Bryce Harman hit an early home run and was later
ejected for colliding with the Houston catcher on a play at the plate.
It was a most eventful night for Harman, who would sit out Saturday’s
game.
Jimmy Boyd
was the star on Saturday as he outpitched Seth Romero
of Houston. Boyd almost went the distance, going 8.2 innings, scattering
six singles.
The Pirates gained control of a pitcher’s duel with a
four run-sixth inning. Williams-Sutton had the key hit, a two-out,
two-run double down the left field line.
The AAC on Monday gave Boyd its pitcher of the week
award for his sterling performance.
East Carolina now gets set for a two-week stint on
the road. The Pirates are at Elon this evening before visiting Tulane in
league play this coming weekend. The Pirates then head south to UNC-Wilmington
to start the next week before visiting Memphis that weekend.
The series win over Houston could pay big dividends
down the road. Both the Pirates and Cougars should be in the
championship hunt. Any tie-breaker between the two goes to the Pirates
with the series win. Essentially it’s now a two-game lead for the
Pirates over the Cougars.
It’s early of course. The likes of Cincinnati,
Tulane, Central Florida and others will likely have a say in how things
go down the road.
To show you how even the conference is, the first
weekend of play didn’t include a sweep. ECU, UCF, Cincinnati and Tulane
all won their respective series and stand tied at the top of the
standings after the first weekend of league play.
“It’s not like a weekend you can look up and say,
‘Hey, you know, we are going to win the series and we’re going to sweep
a team,’” said Godwin. “I mean everybody is good in this league. If you
don’t play your best baseball you’re going to lose. The teams are very
good. We are very good, but everybody in the league is very good.”
First up is Elon, a team that
has already beaten East Carolina this season.
“It’ll be a challenge on Tuesday,” Godwin continued.
“It’s always is, even back when I played. It’s tough to play Elon and
you know you never get a call there. They’re going to be up for us.
They’ve already beat us one time, so you know some guys who are not
normally used on the mound will have to be, and have to pitch on Tuesday
and we will need to play well to win.”
Playing well and getting better on a daily basis is
Godwin’s recipe for success on the diamond.
BB
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
and
WNCN sports anchor
Todd Gibson: