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Audio: Brian Bailey
Show |
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  The
Brian Bailey Show airs on Pirate
Radio 1250 on Mondays at 6:30
p.m. Brian's guests this week
were ECU baseball coach Cliff
Godwin (left) and New England
Patriots free agent signee Bryce
Williams (right):
Replay
show... |
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View Pirate Radio
1250 Programming
Lineup |
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GENERAL |
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Pirates gathering to back Varner |
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 When
former East Carolina golfer
Harold Varner III tees off on
No. 10 at the Quail Hollow Club
in Charlotte at 1 p.m. today for
the Wells Fargo Pro-Am, he will
have a group of followers
wearing purple shirts. ...
More from Al
Myatt...
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FOOTBALL RECRUITING |
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Star juco QB joins 2016 class |
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 Almost
three months after signing day, East
Carolina has addressed a pressing
need that arose unexpectedly with
Kurt Benkert's decision to transfer
to Virginia. Gardner Minshew of
national champion Northwest
Mississippi Community College will
enroll at ECU and contend with
Philip Nelson for the starting
quarterback position. ...
Thumbnail
sketches...
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BASEBALL |
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Cincinnati rallies for tie |
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GREENVILLE — Cincinnati scored
two runs in the top of the
eighth inning for a 3-3 tie with
host East Carolina on Sunday.
The contest was not completed
because of the American Athletic
Conference's deadline for
finishing Sunday games.
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More... |
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Next: ECU at UConn | Friday, 3
pm |
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BASEBALL |
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Pirates hold off Bearcats, even
series |
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 GREENVILLE
— East Carolina ended an
offensive lull and evened its
American Athletic Conference
series against visiting
Cincinnati with a 6-4 win
Saturday. ECU had scored just
eight runs in its previous six
games. The Pirates took a 6-0
lead into the top of the ninth
Saturday but the league-leading
Bearcats created some anxiety
for a Clark-LeClair Stadium
crowd of 2,915 before Joe Ingle
recorded his ninth save.
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Story, pictures & audio... |
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Pictured:
ECU junior
Luke Bolka
slides into
home after a
Charlie
Yorgen
ground out
to the right
side of the
infield in
the third
inning of
the Pirates'
6-4 AAC win
over
Cincinnati
on Saturday
at
Clark-LeClair
Stadium. (W.A.
Myatt photo) |
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BASEBALL |
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Cincinnati tops Pirates, 3-0 |
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 GREENVILLE
— Cincinnati extended its lead
in the American Athletic
Conference with a 3-0 win over
East Carolina at Clark-LeClair
Stadium Friday night in the
opener of a three-game series.
Tulane's 10-6 loss to Houston
put the Bearcats 1.5 games ahead
of the second-place Green Wave.
Andrew Zellner (6-2) and A.J.
Kullman, who got his second
save, combined for the shutout
of the Pirates.
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Story, pictures & audio... |
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Pictured:
The view
from 'The
Jungle'
during ECU's
Friday
evening loss
to American
Athletic
Conference
opponent
Cincinnati.
(W.A. Myatt
photo) |
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BASEBALL |
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Exams and tests for Pirates |
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 The
term student-athlete is
descriptive of the players in
the East Carolina baseball
program and will be especially
applicable over the coming days
as spring semester exams
coincide with a home series
against Cincinnati
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More from Al Myatt...
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By
Brian Bailey
©2016 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
VIEW MOBILE
ALPHA VERSION OF THIS PAGE
East Carolina had plenty of chances to take the
deciding game in its American Athletic Conference series with
first-place Cincinnati last weekend.
When you mix in Sunday's noon start with a 94-minute rain delay, and add
in a 4 p.m. travel curfew and you
end up with a 3-3 tie, it leaves you thinking about
the what ifs.
Baseball doesn’t have a clock. That’s the beauty of
the sport. Nine innings can literally last for hours. It isn’t over
until that third out in the 9th inning is in the books — unless
conference travel is involved.
Both teams knew going into Sunday’s game that they
would have four hours to complete the game. That seemed plenty, until
the rains came.
For a while it looked like there wouldn’t be any more
baseball. The skies cleared and there was almost enough time to finish.
Almost.
Charlie Yorgen looked to be the hero when his base
hit in the 7th inning gave his team the lead. Cincinnati rallied with a
pair of runs in the eighth to get the tie and the series split.
"To get a lead and then blow it, it hurts,” said
Yorgen after the tie game. “They are a good team. Credit to them for
fighting but we should have won that game. I think we played well enough
to win that game. I thought we played well enough all weekend and that
one definitely hurts.”
With three AAC series to play there is now a
definitive upper half and lower half to the standings. Cincinnati,
Tulane, Connecticut and East Carolina are now separated by a single
game.
Still, Cliff Godwin and company can only think about
what might have been. Godwin said the tie certainly felt more like a
loss.
"It does,” Godwin said just after that travel curfew
ended Sunday’s game. “We take the lead and we knew it was going to be
the last inning we were going to play. Going in when we brought in Joe
(Ingle) our plan was to get three innings out of him. We figured with
the time curfew that three innings would probably get us to the end of
the game. I ran him back out for the fourth. That's on me. That was my
decision to run him back out there. The kid had given us everything that
he had. Sam (Lanier) came in and did a great job. We make a play there
and we win the game.”
There is still plenty of baseball to be played for
East Carolina. The regular season championship is still very much in
sight for this Pirate baseball team.
Next up is UConn on the road and we all saw firsthand
just how good the Huskies are
when they visited Greenville. The teams will clash on
Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This will be another series that will have
a regional-type feel. The Pirates should be accustomed to hard-fought,
close games when the NCAA tournament rolls around. That’s been life in
the American for the entire season.
“Our guys fought hard,” concluded Godwin after his
club recorded one win, one loss and one tie in the series with the
Bearcats.
“They played hard," he said. "It's a game of inches
and sometimes it's very unforgiving."
The saying goes that a tie is like kissing your
sister. It sounds like something the late Yogi Berra would say.
Actually, Navy football coach Eddie Erdelatz is credited with the quote,
after a scoreless tie against Duke in 1953.
Another story gives the quote to another Navy coach.
Tom Hamilton reportedly said it after a tie against Army.
Perhaps George Brett said it best.
“If a tie is like kissing your sister," observed
Brett, "a loss is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out.”
Either way last weekend was a weekend that won’t sit
well with the Pirates.
After wrapping up exams this week it will be all
baseball for the Godwin & Company.
Hopefully, we’ve seen the last of the kissings —
sisters, grandmothers and otherwise.
BB
