Why ECU could potentially host an NCAA baseball regional this season
East Carolina's baseball team, following a season when it had a losing record in conference play and missed the NCAA tournament because of it, is coming back with a vengeance this spring.
The Pirates (27-9, 5-4 AAC), ranked No. 11 in the country by Baseball America and No. 12 by D1baseball.com, are not only lined up to return to the NCAA tournament, they are in prime position to host games.
Baseball America’s latest bracket projection on Wednesday has Greenville as one of 16 regional host for the tournament’s first weekend.
Tuesday night’s win on the campus of a strong Duke team that’s also projected as a regional host showed the tenacity that’s marked this season’s Pirates.
ECU had lost the final two games of a three-game American Athletic Conference series to South Florida in Greenville last weekend. How did the Pirates respond? By beating No. 9 Duke 9-2 at Jack Coombs Field in Durham.
“Did you not think we were going to respond? Did you think we were just going to lose games the rest of the year?” ECU coach Cliff Godwin said after Tuesday's game. “No that’s what this team has done all year. When people have written them off, they just come back the next day. They fight and they are tough.”
In 2016, ECU won a regional championship at Charlottesville, Va., before before losing to Texas Tech in the Super Regionals just short of the College World Series.
But last season, after having made NCAA tournament appearances in seven of the previous 10 years, the Pirates suffered through a 7-17 AAC season to finish 32-28 overall.
The win over Duke only added to ECU’s strong tournament resume. The Pirates won two of three games over North Carolina on Feb. 23-25. East Carolina gets a shot at No. 2 N.C. State on Tuesday night in Raleigh.
This year’s team has a chance to top last season’s win total before the end of April. Later this week, the Pirates head to Memphis for a three-game series that starts Friday.
“It gives us a good little pat on the back,” ECU third baseman Connor Litton said of the Duke win. “We let a couple slip from us this (past) weekend but we’re not going to start falling. Our guys in here, we have great attitudes. We still work the same way, win or lose. This gets us back on track for our upcoming weekend at Memphis.”
Defense has been ECU’s strength this season. The Pirates lead the AAC in fielding percentage (.984) with a league-low 23 errors.
While Duke committed two costly errors to aid ECU rallies Tuesday night, the Pirates had no errors. ECU also turned a pair of double plays to stifle Duke rallies.
Offensively, ECU is third in the conference in team batting average (.287) and fourth in team earned run average (3.34).
The Pirates used 13 singles in a 15-hit attack against Duke, which entered the game leading the ACC in team ERA (3.31). Every player in the Pirates lineup had a hit.
“Sometimes when you hit ground balls you hit them right at people and sometimes when you hit ground balls they find a hole,” Duke coach Chris Pollard said. “It wasn’t like they were banging the ball off of the wall all night but they did a nice job in two-strike counts and they did a nice job being on-time with fastballs. They had good fastball timing and their offensive approach is very well-coached.”
In ECU’s starting lineup Tuesday night, only two players -- junior-college transfer Litton and freshman first baseman Alec Burleson -- were newcomers who didn’t go through last season’s struggles.
Catcher Jake Washer, who had three hits and two RBIs against Duke, was sitting out as a redshirt freshman, serving as the bullpen catcher, in 2016 when the Pirates nearly made the College World Series.
This crew of Pirates is hungry to add to ECU’s history of baseball success in the postseason.
This story was originally published April 18, 2018 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Why ECU could potentially host an NCAA baseball regional this season."