By MICHAEL PRUNKA

For The Washington Daily News

 

East Carolina closed out the regular season in memorable fashion with a walk-off bunt by Luke Lowery in the 10th inning of Saturday’s game against UT-San Antonio. With that, the Pirates earned a series win and the No. 6 seed in the Conference USA Conference Tournament.

The Pirates now embark on a mission for the conference championship in Hattiesburg, Miss. They’ll first meet host and No. 3-seeded Southern Miss on Wednesday. Last time the two sides met, ECU won one of three against the Golden Eagles on their home field.

“The more recently you’ve seen them, the closer you are to knowing what they’re about,” said head coach Billy Godwin. “There’s some familiarity with seeing a team we just saw two weeks ago. I thought our kids played really hard in that series. It’s always a tough place to play. I know their fans will be out. Our guys are excited about it.”

Even though the Pirates lost twice to Southern Miss this season, they don’t feel any pressure as a result. In fact, they found a lot to take away from their last trip to Hattiesburg.

“Every game was close,” said senior Drew Reynolds. “We left there feeling like we could have played better than we did. Certainly we feel good heading into the matchup. We’re going to try to play well and hopefully it will work out for us.”

Two weeks ago, ECU took the series opener against Southern Miss before dropping two close games to lose the series. In the first loss, Brett Mabry gave the Pirates tremendous support through seven innings. In that span, he gave up seven hits and, on the back of solid defensive play, allowed just one run.

The series finale unfolded a bit differently, especially regarding the starting pitching. Between David Lucroy, who only recorded one out before being chased from the mound, and Nick Durazo, ECU surrendered four runs (three earned) on four hits in less than two innings.

“We’re probably leaning toward Reid Love,” said Godwin. “We’ll make that official decision (Tuesday). We always like to give our guys, especially coming off a short week, a bullpen day to see how they recover and make sure everything is heading in the right direction before we make those. But I feel like we’ll go with Reid Love.”

Love pitched his third complete game of the season en route to a 3-2 win in the series opener versus UTSA. He allowed a pair of unearned runs on five hits. ECU’s offense backed him up by jumping to a 1-0 lead in the second inning and then adding a pair in the fourth.

Should the Pirates defeat Southern Miss, they’ll face the winner of UAB versus UTSA on Thursday.