Pirates Bow Out to Southern Miss, 3-1
May 24, 2003 | Baseball
NEW ORLEANS -- Mike Maddox and Jeff Cook each hit solo home runs as Southern Miss eliminated East Carolina, 3-1, from the 2003 Conference USA Baseball Tournament here Saturday.
With the loss, the Pirates fall to 33-25-1 overall and must now wait until Monday to see if they are awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament when the pairings are announced at 12:30 p.m. on ESPN.
With its pitching nearly exasperated, ECU turned to senior Will Brinson to make his second start in four days. After giving up three hits in the first, including a home run to Maddox, Brinson allowed just one hit over the next three innings and left with the game tied.
Freshman Jake Smith tied the game with a solo home run in the fourth inning, his 10th of the season.
Senior pitcher Glenn Tucker was brought on in relief in the fifth and finished the game for the Pirates. Tucker tied his career-high for strikeouts with seven, while allowing just one earned run the rest of the way.
Southern Miss (44-14) threatened to retake the lead in the sixth with runners at first and second with one out. Tucker then struck out the next two Golden Eagle batters to end the inning. He later retired the final two batters in the seventh to keep the game knotted at one after USM put a runner on third base with just one out.
The Pirates nearly took the lead in bottom half of the seventh, but freshman Adam Witter was called out at the plate after trying to score from first on a ball hit into the left-center field gap by Kevin O'Sullivan. ECU didn't threaten to score again.
Cook broke the tie by leading off the eighth inning with his 21st home run of the season. USM then added an insurance run in the ninth on an error and RBI-single by Matt Shepherd.
ECU went down in order in both the eighth and ninth inning.
Ray Antonelli (4-0) picked up the victory holding ECU scoreless over 3.1 innings with three strikeouts.
