East Carolina edged North Carolina to complete the Pirates’s first regular season sweep of the Tar Heels since April 27, 1994.

Reid Love pitched a complete game shutout that allowed the Pirates to hang on to win, 1-0. He confidently took the mound in the bottom of the ninth and turned in an impressive performance consistent with the previous eight innings he had pitched. He made a barehanded catch for the inning’s first out and turned around and struck out Tyler Ramirez for the second out.

“It was pretty easy giving him the game ball after the game,” said head coach Billy Godwin. “Reid was outstanding. I thought he was good last week (versus UNC), but (this was) by far his best performance as a Pirate. He was right around 100 pitches going into (the ninth) and I just left it up to him. ‘How do you feel?’ He said, ‘coach, I’m finishing this.”

Love also started last week when the Tar Heels made the trek to Greenville. He surrendered an earned run on seven hits and struck out a batter in 4.2 innings pitched. This time around, he only gave up five hits and fanned a career-high seven in a full game of work.

Charlie Yorgen notched the game-winning hit for the Pirates in the top of the seventh. Garrett Brooks led off with a single and reached second via Hunter Allen’s sac bunt. Yorgen singled up the middle and plated Brooks for what proved to be the only score of the game.

“(Trevor Kelley) threw me two sliders to start,” said Yorgen. “He got one over for a strike. It was a 1-1 count and I was just looking for another one. He kind of hung one up. Hunter Allen did a great job getting a sac bunt down to get (Brooks) into scoring position. Garrett is always getting on base and scoring runs, so he did an awesome job, too, on that.”

With tornado warnings two hours away in Greenville, ECU and UNC played under overcast and, at some points, foggy skies in Boshamer Stadium. The conditions weren’t particularly terrible, but the two sides combined for seven errors.

“Both teams play on the same field,” Godwin said. “So, you don’t talk about errors. You’ve got to go out and play the game. Our guys, like I said, I’m just proud of them.”

The Pirates return to Greenville to prepare for final exams and a Conference USA series versus Florida International in Clark-LeClair Stadium this weekend.