East Carolina University
Radford
No. 25 Pirates Thump Highlanders 16-3
March 14, 2007 | Baseball
March 14, 2007
No. 25 ECU 16, Radford 3 (PDF)
GREENVILLE, N.C. - Ryan Tousley drove in five runs, scored three and smacked a pair of home runs, including a grand slam as East Carolina beat Radford 16-3 Wednesday afternoon to sweep the two-game midweek series at Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Trailing 1-0 heading into the bottom of the first inning, ECU (13-6) put up a five-spot to take a 5-1 lead. Harrison Eldridge led off with a walk, moved to second on Dale Mollenhauer's single to left and then third on Stephen Batts' walk before Tousley crushed a 3-1 fastball to left field that landed in the Cliff Moore Football Practice complex. Brandon Henderson followed Tousley's shot with his fifth bomb of the season to right field to close out the scoring.
Freshman Mike Anderson (1-0) got his first collegiate start and picked up his first win after going five innings with four strikeouts. After giving up a run on three hits in the first, the Cortlandt Manor native settled down and retired the next 12 batters before giving way to Joe O'Malley to start the sixth. O'Malley (two hits, one run, one strikeout) and Cody Leggett (one strikeout) each pitched an inning of relief, while junior Chris Powell (two hits, one run, three strikeouts) made his fourth appearance of the year closing out the final two innings.
JB Blixt dropped to 0-1 on the year after pitching just three innings, allowing nine runs (all earned) on eight hits. John Lloyd (3 IP, three hits, one run, one strikeout) and Harrison Helms (2 IP, five hits, six runs, and three strikeouts) performed mob duty on the mound.
Radford (6-10) jumped on the Pirates early in the first when Raphael Turner singled home Steve Mignogna with a shot to right-center for a 1-0 lead. Mignogna took a 0-1 offering by Anderson to right field, and then moved to second on Corey Greene's ground out to third, while an Anderson wild pitch moved him to third setting up the games first run.
Up 5-1 in the third, Tousley rounded the bases again, this time on a solo blast to right-center, marking the second time in his career that he has hit two home runs in one game. The first time came last year at Memphis on May 20, 2006.
In the bottom of the fourth, ECU tacked on three more runs giving them a 9-1 advantage. Drew Schieber singled through the right side to get the inning under way. Freshman Broc Sutton smoked his first triple of the year to center, scoring Schieber. On the very next pitch, David Forbes unleashed on another Blixt fastball, a two-run shot putting ECU up eight.
Forbes picked up his third RBI of the contest in the fifth with a sac fly to center that plated Jake Dean and extending the Pirate lead to 10-1.
Radford got one run back in the sixth when Nick Minter drove in Nate Toth on a misplayed pop-up to the pitchers mound, resulting in an infield hit making the score 10-2.
ECU extended its lead even further in the bottom of the eighth when they pushed across six more runs, putting the score at 16-2. During the frame, freshman Kyle Roller picked up his third RBI of the year with a sac fly, Sutton drove in his second run of the contest, Eldridge had a two-RBI single to center and Mollenhauer one-hoped the fence in right-center for a ground-rule double that scored Eldridge.
The Pirates will be back in action this Friday, March 16 when they host Big-Ten conference member Michigan in a three-game series. The first game is scheduled for 7 p.m., while the two squads will play a double-header on Saturday starting at 1 p.m.
Post-Game Notes:
