CofC suffers home setback to No. 8 East Carolina

MT. PLEASANT, SC - Spencer Brickhouse, T.J. Riles and Eric Tyler each belted home runs helping No. 8 East Carolina to a 12-7 road win over the College of Charleston Tuesday afternoon at Patriots Park. With the win the Pirates improve to 9-3 and extended their current win streak to nine games, while the Cougars dropped to 7-5 on the season.

Sam Lanier (2-1) picked up the win allowing one run (earned) on two walks with two strikeouts in 1.2 innings of relief. Starter Chris Holba surrendered four runs (two earned) on four hits with a walk and two punch outs in two frames. ECU also got outings fromHunter Hood (2.1 IP, 1 R, 2 Ks), Ryan Ross (0.2 IP, 2 Hs, 1 K) and Tyler Smith (1.1 IP, 1 R, 1 K) all out of the bullpen.

Tucker White (1-1) suffered the loss after he was touched for six runs (all earned) on seven hits with one walk and five strikeouts. The Cougars used five arms out of the bullpen in Christian Shiver (1.0 IP, 1 H), Austin George (1.0 IP, 2 Ks), Justin Baker (0.1 IP, 3 Rs), Will Detwiler (1.0 IP, 2 Rs, 1 K) and Griffin McLarty (1.2 IP, 1 R, 2 Ks).

ECU recorded a season-high 12 runs on 15 hits getting multiple base knocks from Brickhouse (2), Turner Brown (2), Riles (3), Tyler (3) and Travis Watkins (3). Brickhouse drove in a career-best three runs to lead the Pirates, while Riles, Tyler and Watkins added two each.

CofC tallied nine hits getting multiple base knocks from Bradley Dixon (2), Logan McRae (2), Tommy Richter (2) and Erven Roper (3). Dixon and Roper each added two RBI on the day.

How It Happened:
Trailing 4-3 going to the top of the fourth inning, ECU put up a three-spot taking its first lead of the contest, 6-4. Brickhouse walked to start the frame and took third on Bryant Packard's single to center where he would move up to second on the throw. Kirk Morgan sent a fly ball to left field pushing across Brickhouse for the first run of the stanza. Riles stepped to the plate and unloaded on a White 2-2 offering depositing the ball over the right field wall for his second homer of the season.

Richter's RBI single to left center scored Roper, who doubled down the left field line with one out in the bottom of the fourth pulling CofC within one, 6-5, and that's as close as it got for the rest of the game.

CofC got on the board first scoring in the bottom of the first inning taking a 1-0 lead. Dupree started the frame when he reached on a throwing error by Brown and then circled the bases on three Holba wild pitches, two of them coming on strikeouts.

Tyler knotted the game at one-all in the top of the second inning taking a first pitch offering (hanging breaking ball) from White over the left-center field wall for his second home run of the season (10th career).

Four hits by the Cougars in the bottom of the second led to three runs as CofC took a 4-1 lead. McRae and Dixon laced consecutive doubles down the left field line, which was followed by a Roper single where he ended up on third on ECU's second error of the contest. Ritcher doubled to center field scoring Roper for the third run of the frame.

ECU pulled within one, 4-3, in the top of the third inning. Riles singled to center then took third on Charlie Yorgen's double to right center. Brown's sac fly to right field in foul territory allowed both runners to move up scoring Riles. Watkins followed with a single to left plating Yorgen before he was thrown out at second base.

The Pirates would score three runs in the seventh and three in the eighth to pull away and make it a 12-6 game. The Cougars added single runs in the seventh and ninth capping the scoring on the day at 12-7.

-per ECU Athletics