By Staff
ECU Sports Information
GREENVILLE – Junior Seth Maness tossed his second career complete game and Zach Wright hit a pair of three-run home runs as East Carolina took game two of the Conference USA weekend series from Marshall Saturday afternoon 12-3 at Lewis Field inside Clark-LeClair Stadium. With the win the Pirates take the season series and improve to 27-17 overall and 8-6 in league play, while The Herd drops to 20-24 and 9-8.
Maness (8-2) struck out eight batters and allowed three runs (all solo home runs) on eight hits with three walks. The right-hander from Pinehurst, N.C. improved to 16-2 all-time against C-USA members and has won his last eight decisions after starting the season 0-2. Maness retired the side three times and nine of his first 11 batters. In all, he faced 37 batters getting Marshall to ground out 12 times and fly out seven.
Wright, who was 4 for his last 31 entering today’s game, broke out of his offensive slump collecting his second career multi-HR game and collected a career-best six RBI. After drawing a pair of walks in his first two at bats and striking out in the fifth, Wright sent a three-run shot to center in the seventh and a three-run bomb to right center in the eighth.
Mike Mason (2-6) suffered the loss after giving up four runs (all earned) on six hits with five walks and five strikeouts in four innings of work. The Herd’s used four more pitchers from the bullpen (Ryan Kiel, Kevin Shackelford, Ben Frith and Mark Cann) gave up a combined eight runs on seven hits over the final four innings of work.
Jared Avchen put the Pirates up 2-0 in the first on a two-RBI single to left field that plated Trent Whitehead and Corey Thompson. Whitehead, who was 2 for 5, singled up the middle to start the inning then landed on third after Thompson walked and John Wooten was plunked by Mason to load the bases for Avchen with two outs in the frame.
ECU extended its lead to 3-0 in the third on Kyle Roller’s 10th home run of the season and 49th of his career to right center.
Kurt Lipton hit the first of his two home runs on the afternoon to start the fourth inning sending a 2-1 offering from Maness down the right field line, pulling Marshall within two, 3-1.
Cam Freeman answered Lipton’s homer with his third round-tripper of the season to right center in the bottom half of the fourth, putting ECU back on top 4-1.
The scored remained 4-1 until the Pirates put up a five spot in the seventh and a three-spot in the eighth, both highlighted by three-run homers by Wright, which gave ECU a comfortable 12-2 lead. Alfredo Brito smacked his second home run of the year with two outs in the ninth off Maness to close the game at 12-3.
Offensively the Pirates had 13 hits with Avchen, Freeman, Roller, Whitehead, Wooten and Wright each collecting two base knocks a piece.
The Pirates will look for the series sweep Sunday afternoon with a first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m.