East Carolina University
Southern Mississippi
Pirates Fall To Southern Miss 10-1
May 07, 2006 | Baseball
May 7, 2006
HATTIESBURG, MISS. - Southern Miss jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back, defeating East Carolina 10-1 Sunday afternoon at Pete Taylor Park and complete a series sweep over the Pirates. With the loss, ECU falls to fifth place in the Conference USA standings
Kevin Coker singled up the middle in the bottom of the first frame scoring Marc Maddox and Jody Blount scored on a Bailey Hartel walk plating the game-winning run.
Cliff Russum picked up his sixth win of the season for the Golden Eagles (34-16, 10-8) after allowing one run on 11 hits in seven full innings. Matt Caire faced one batter in the eighth before giving way to Daniel Best who closed out his eleventh game of the season after working a scoreless 1 2/3 innings.
Dustin Sasser suffered the loss for ECU (28-20, 7-11) falling to 4-6 on the year. He worked 5 1/3 innings allowing four runs, all earned, on seven hits and striking out two. Senior Carter Harrell made his first appearance since March 25 against Rice. He pitched 1 1/3 innings allowing one run on two hits. Jason Neitz, Kevin Rhodes and Chris Powell closed out the final 1 1/3 inning.
Coker led the Golden Eagles with three hits, while four other batters each pounded out two hits a piece. Coker along with Maddox, Toddric Johnson and Luke Adkins collected two RBI each.
Jake Smith once again made his presence known at the plate as he boosted his average to .318 on the year after going 3-for-4. Sophomore shortstop Dale Mollenhauer was the only other Pirate to collect multiple hits on the day going 2-for-4.
Already up 2-0 in the fifth inning, Coker cranked his fifth home run of the season extending Southern Miss' lead to 3-0.
Southern Miss added runs in the sixth and seventh pushing the lead to 5-0.
ECU plated their first run in the top of the eighth making the game 5-1 when Harrison Eldridge scored on Ryan Wood's grounder to third.
Johnson's tenth homer of the season, a two-run shot, highlighted a five run bottom of the eighth inning closing the game at 10-1.
ECU will be back in action Wednesday night when they host Coastal Carolina at 7 p.m. inside Clark-LeClair Stadium.
