East Carolina Defeats UNCW, 3-1 | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of ECU Sports.



    WILMINGTON, N.C.     East Carolina scored a pair of runs in the eighth inning to break a one-all tie before securing a 3-1 win over UNC Wilmington Tuesday night at Brooks Field. The Pirates improved to 11-10 with the victory, while the Seahawks fell to 12-8.

    With the game knotted at one in the eighth, ECU pushed across a pair to take a 3-1 lead. Ben Newton singled through the right side and was lifted for Jake Kuchmaner as a pinch runner at first. Bryson Worrell moved Kuchmaner over to second on a sac bunt and he came around to score on a throwing error by Baldwin at second base during Lane Hoover's at-bat. Hoover would steal second and took third on a throwing error by the catcher (Bryan Arendt) and scored on Jacob Jenkins-Cowart's sac fly to right field.

    Garrett Saylor (2-2) earned the win tossing three scoreless frames in relief with three strikeouts. Making his second career start, Ryder Giles tossed a career-high 3.1 innings allowing two hits, walking one and striking out a pair before passing the ball off to Carter Spivey in the fourth inning. Spivey allowed one run (earned) on two hits with three punch outs in 2.2 innings.

    Ethan Chenault (1-1) took the loss surrendering two runs (both unearned) on two hits with a pair of strikeouts in 1.2 innings. Starter Zane Taylor allowed one run (earned) on three hits with three punch outs in 5.2 innings. Cole Benton worked two-thirds of a scoreless frame and Hunter Hodges tossed a scoreless ninth with two strikeouts.

    Hoover's RBI ground out broke a scoreless tie in the sixth inning staking the Pirates to a 1-0 lead. Jacob Starling singled to lead off the frame and took third on Worrell's single through the right side. Hoover rolled over on a Taylor pitch grounding out to second and pushing across Starling.

    UNCW knotted the game at one-all in the bottom of the sixth stanza on a Spivey wild pitch. Taber Mongero got things going with a double down the right field line and took third on Brooks Baldwin's infield single to second and scored on Spivey's wild pitch.

    ECU returns Lewis Field at Clark-LeClair Stadium to begin a five-game homestand on Wednesday, March 23 when it plays host to Elon. First pitch is slated for 4 p.m. (ET) and will be streamed on ESPN+.