ECU’s NCAA Tournament run ends with 8-3 loss to Virginia in Charlottesville Regional
A look around the college baseball scoreboard Sunday night was enough to make pitching enthusiasts faint.
Grand slams. Multiple multi-run innings. Football scores.
Not in Charlottesville. At least, not early on.
Coming out of the losers’ bracket in the NCAA Tournament regional there, East Carolina needed to beat Virginia on Sunday night to extend its postseason into an “if-game” on Monday, and through six innings the Pirates appeared to be on their way to doing so.
One swing by Ethan O’Donnell changed that dynamic. O’Donnell cranked the first pitch he saw from Landon Ginn deep to left-center and over the fence for a three-run home run, turning a one-run deficit into a two-run lead, and the ACC Coastal Division regular-season champion Cavaliers were off the the races.
Virginia tacked on three more runs on another home run in the eighth inning, and another in the ninth on a Kyle Teel blast, and punched its ticket to the super regional round with an 8-3 win over ECU.
The Pirates (47-19) won their NCAA Tournament opener against Oklahoma on Friday, then lost a nail-biter Saturday to Virginia, 2-1, to drop into the losers’ bracket. They rebounded earlier Sunday with a win over the Sooners to earn another crack at the Cavaliers.
Virginia scored first Sunday night, posting a run in the top of the first on a Teel ground-rule double. The Pirates answered in the bottom of the inning, Jacob Starling scoring on a sacrifice fly. ECU added another in the bottom of the fourth on a Justin Wilcoxen RBI single, and from there, the pitchers were having their way.
Until the seventh.
Virginia, the No. 7 national seed, knows it will host a super regional next weekend. The question now is: Against whom?
No. 10 Coastal Carolina’s 8-6 win over Duke on Sunday night forced a deciding game in the Conway Regional. The team that wins Monday will travel to Charlottesville for a best-of-3 series.
Stayin’ alive
To reach the regional final, ECU first had to again overcome Oklahoma, the team it dispatched on Day 1.
The Sooners scored first Sunday, but the Pirates scored more often, pounding out 10 hits — including three doubles — to overwhelm Oklahoma, 8-5.
Facing a 1-0 deficit in the third inning, the Pirates put up three runs on a walk, three singles, a fielder’s choice and a hit-by-pitch to pull ahead by two.
In the fifth, ECU turned on the power. Lane Hoover singled up the middle to start the inning, and Jacob Starling moved him to third with a single to right. That ended the day for Oklahoma starter James Hitt.
Carter Campbell didn’t far any better. Carter Cunningham greeted him with a double down the left-field line on a 2-2 pitch to score Hoover, and Josh Moylan followed with a single to plate Starling. Cam Clonch then lofted a sacrifice fly to left to score Cunningham.
Jacob Jenkins-Cowart and Justin Wilcoxen followed that up with back-to-back doubles to score another pair of runs, chasing Campbell after just five batters faced. Carson Pierce came on for the Sooners and sandwiched a pair of walks between a pair of fly outs to leave the bases loaded, but ECU had done its damage in the inning, posting a seven-run lead.
The Sooners tried to chip away at the deficit, scoring two in the bottom of the fifth and one each in the seventh and ninth innings, but a parade of ECU pitchers — Danny Beal, Landon Ginn, Wyatt Lunsford-Shenkman and Carter Spivey — combined to pitch 6 2/3 innings of relief to lock down the win.
This story was originally published June 4, 2023 at 3:50 PM.
