ECU baseball tops Oklahoma in NCAA Regional elimination game

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - ECU baseball kept its season alive against Oklahoma on Sunday afternoon 8 to 5 at the NCAA Regional Tournament in Virginia.

A big five run fifth inning put ECU to a big lead. Carter Cunningham, Jacob Jenkins-Cowart and Justin Wilcoxen all had RBI doubles in the inning as they batted around the order. Josh Moylan’s RBI single in the inning gave him 69 for the season. An American Athletic Conference record. ECU took an 8-1 lead and made it stand up.

Sooners got on the board first. They loaded the bases with three walks in the first inning. They got a sacrifice fly by Anthony Mackenzie to score Kendall Pettis. 1-0 Oklahoma after one.

Pirates would rally in the third. Jacob Starling with a perfect squeeze bunt to score Joey Berini from third tied the game at one. Lane Hoover cam in on a fielders choice by Josh Moylan to make it 2-1. Then Cam Clonch with an RBI single to right scores Starling 3-1 ECU pulled in front.

Josh Grosz got the start for the Pirates and went 2.1 innings allowing one run on three hits. Danny Beal came in for relief in the third. Landon Ginn got Beal out of a bases loaded no out jam with some great defense in the fourth. They allowed no runs in the inning.

Wyatt Lunsford-Shenkman threw 2.2 innings allowing 3 runs on 4 hits as Oklahoma closed the gap to 8-4 after 7.

Carter Spivey came in in the 8th and hung a zero for ECU. He did surrender one solo shot in the 9th but closed the door on the 8-5 victory.

ECU advances to meet Virginia for the Regional Tournament championship round. The Pirates need to win twice to advance to the Super Regional. Game one is tonight at 6 pm.