Pirates Eliminate Sooners To Advance To Charlottesville Regional Final

Sunday, June 4

Charlottesville, Va.

Noon

East Carolina University

47-18

Oklahoma

32-28

East Carolina

Oklahoma

Pirates Eliminate Sooners To Advance To Charlottesville Regional Final

June 04, 2023 | Baseball

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – East Carolina broke open a close contest in the middle innings Sunday afternoon, posting an 8-4 victory over Oklahoma in an elimination game at the Charlottesville Regional from Davenport Field.

The Pirates (47-18) will face No. 7 national seed and host Virginia in the regional final Sunday evening at 6 p.m., needing a win over the Cavaliers to force a winner take all affair Monday for a spot in the super regional round. ECU has now qualified for a regional final the last four full seasons.

Landon Ginn (6-0) remained perfect on the mound, retaining his unbeaten record by tossing a scoreless inning. James Hitt (6-2) allowed five runs on five hits in 4.0 innings in his final performance of the year.

Cam Clonch was one of three Pirate batters to register two hits as he finished with a pair of runs driven in while Jacob Starling was 2-for-5 with two runs scored. Josh Moylan also chipped in with two RBI and a run scored. Bryce Madron and Dakota Harris paced the Sooners (32-28) with three hits apiece.

Oklahoma drew a trio of walks with one out in the bottom of the first and capitalized with a Anthony Mackenzie sacrifice fly that gave the Sooners an early 1-0 advantage. Josh Grosz avoided further trouble by inducing a ground ball out to third.

Momentum swung the way of East Carolina in a big way in the top of the third. Joey Berini drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on a passed ball before advancing to third on a one-out single by Lane Hoover. Starling followed with a textbook squeeze bunt that was bobbled by Hitt, allowing Berini to score easily and tie things at one. Carter Cunningham would then wear a 2-2 pitch to load the bases and Moylan beat out a potential double play at first to plate Hoover. Clonch capped the scoring in the frame with a sharp RBI single to right field, leaving ECU ahead 3-1 moving to the home half of the inning.

Consecutive leadoff singles by Easton Carmichael and Diego Muniz and an errant throw to first on a Wallace Clark bunt saw Oklahoma fill up the bases with no outs in the bottom of the fourth. The Pirates signaled for Ginn out of the bullpen and he delivered as Moylan snagged a hot shot at first and doubled off Clark before Ginn coaxed a weak grounder to the bag at first to preserve the two-run East Carolina cushion.

The Pirates started to batter the Sooner bullpen in the fifth, putting up five runs on six hits to vault out to an 8-1 lead. ECU saw five players record RBI in the frame, highlighted by a trio of run-scoring doubles by Cunningham, Jacob Jenkins-Cowart and Justin Wilcoxen.

The Sooners chipped away at their deficit over the final few innings but could only come as close as three when Madron hit a solo home run in the top of the ninth. Carter Spivey retired three of the final four batters to keep Oklahoma at bay.