By Al Myatt
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The ECU baseball team left early Thursday morning for an American Athletic Conference series that starts at Memphis at 7:30 tonight. Last weekend, the Pirates jetted off to New Orleans for a series with Tulane

"It's not easy to travel in this conference where we're located because you're flying everywhere," said ECU coach Cliff Godwin. "We played Elon on Tuesday (April 5), got back at one o'clock in the morning. Wednesday, the kids have got to go to class. We had a very light practice and lifted, then fly out early Thursday to get to Tulane, which we're traveling pretty much all day. Get there about three or four o'clock, then practice at 5:45. We played really well Friday until the ninth inning, which is a very important inning, obviously."

Junior left-hander Evan Krucyznski took a shutout into the ninth inning on Friday night before things unraveled and Tulane took a 5-2 win on a walk-off homer.

"It was a hard loss for our team," Godwin said. "Sometimes you need to get punched in the mouth to kind of understand what it feels like. That was probably the hardest loss of the year in my opinion just because we were in full control of the game until the ninth inning and it just fell apart."

The Green Wave won game two, 3-0.

"We kind of played hungover on Saturday," Godwin said. "We didn't respond like we should have. I talked to the guys about that but we just could not get going on Saturday."

The Pirates bounced back to avoid a sweep with a 7-3 win on Sunday.

"Sunday, I thought our guys were ready to play," Godwin said. "One thing I talk about all the time is all we can focus on is how we prepare and control the things that we can control. I said when we took batting practice on Saturday, it wasn't going to be a good day unless Jimmy Boyd pitched like a shutout and somebody hit a home run just because I could see it in their eyes.

"Sunday, much different. It was a look of determination, a look of 'Hey, we're going to come out here and execute BP and we're going to fly around the field.' Not that it's always going to work that way but it gives you the best chance of success. The two times that we've done that — that was against Jacksonville on Saturday and then at Tulane when I really like looked at BP and infield/outfield and it was like, 'We're not losing today.' I was proud of the guys, the way they responded.

"It's tough to win on the road in our league, especially Tulane. It's an all-turf (synthetic) field. Not that we played bad but they played really well on their home field."

Tulane is 15-3 at home this season, 4-7 on the road and 2-1 in neutral site contests.

"They're a much different team in my opinion when they're on the road," Godwin said. "They're a good team but they're much different. I think they made one error in 27 innings but the one error they gave them in my opinion was a hit for Charlie (Yorgen). I thought they went errorless. They had two pitchers to throw complete games against us. ... You've got to tip your hat. They played better than us the first two nights. Then we played better than them on Sunday."

Starting pitching

The Pirates got three starting pitching performances that ranged from solid to excellent at Tulane.

"Kruz was the best he's been all year," Godwin said. "We talked about it Tuesday. He tried to do too much on that first pitch to (Jake) Rogers and he hit him. Then a 1-2 pitch, he didn't bury it like he should have. Guy hit a ball through the four hole. He knows it. I mean that's why he's such a great kid — he knows if he can have one of those two pitches back he would have finished the game.

"I was more confident on Friday night that he was going to finish the game than at any other point in time in his career. That's how good he was pitching. He was at 85 pitches and I knew he was going to finish the game. That's why you can never take a pitch off. If you do, the other team can take advantage of it and they did.

"Jimmy (Boyd) pitched good (Saturday). He didn't have his best stuff at all. He just battled as long as he could hang in there. We got him out of there. He was going to give up some more runs because he just didn't look like himself.

"And then Jacob Wolfe was outstanding (Sunday). He was as good as he's been all year. It was really good to see those guys have good outings."

UNC-Wilmington cancellation

A second nonconference contest with UNC-Wilmington was canceled Tuesday night due to rain. That means ECU will have rested relievers going into this weekend.

"It gives you more options out of the bullpen on Friday night," Godwin said. "You can pitch anybody. It's an advantage to us in my opinion. We'll have everybody fresh. I actually gave the guys Tuesday off. I think at this time of year, anytime you can get them off their feet — people don't understand it but being on your feet and the way we play the game and what my expectations are — it takes a toll on you. So I'm trying to do a better job this year of getting them off their feet as much as possible as long as they're playing hard on the weekends and the midweek games to have them fresh at the end of the season."

Memphis wins series at USF

Memphis is 12-21 overall and 3-3 in the AAC. The Tigers took two of three games at South Florida last weekend, which got Godwin's attention. ECU is 21-11 and also is 3-3 in the league.

D1Baseball.com has the Pirates ranked No. 23 nationally. ECU is No. 25 in the RPI standings, the highest-rated AAC team.

Godwin talked about the challenge the Tigers present.

"They're playing well in conference," he said. "You look at their overall record and they haven't played as well. Taking two of three on the road at South Florida — anytime you go on the road and take two of three, I think that's kind of a feather in your cap. We'll need to play our best baseball.

"We're not good enough to be able to roll the balls out and just win. We have to play our best baseball. We'll need to be prepared and ready to go (tonight) and the rest of the weekend to be successful."