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Sports

Pirates just escape walking the plank

Houston could not put away the final game of the series to complete the three-game sweep

by RONNIE TURNER
The Daily Cougar 

In the first two games of its three-game series against East Carolina, UH dominated the Pirates with pitching and hitting, but in the series finale on Sunday, the Cougars could do neither very well. ECU senior starter Brody Taylor tossed a complete game-shutout and limited the Cougars to five hits, while his offense grabbed a couple of early runs to propel the Pirates to a 3-0 victory in Greenville, North Carolina, preventing UH from picking up its third series sweep of the season. 

Taylor (4-1, 1.65 ERA) only gave up two walks while picking up six strikeouts, three of them coming in the ninth inning when he struck out all three batters he faced to close out the game. In the fourth inning, he flirted with disaster when he gave up singles to junior Brad Lincoln and sophomore Bryan Tully, and walked junior Brian Tempko to load the bases with no outs. The next batter, freshman Travis Cougot, hit a fielder's choice grounder to senior first baseman Adam Witter who threw home to get the force out on Lincoln. Taylor escaped further potential damage by getting senior Brett Logan to ground into an inning-ending double play.

Freshman pitcher Luis Flores (2-2, 2.53) was charged with the loss after giving up two runs on five hits in 3.2 innings of work. He was yanked in the bottom of the fourth in favor of junior Shea Hancock.

In Saturday's game, UH (18-13, 5-1 C-USA) was out-hit 14 to 13, but took advantage of four errors by the Pirates' defense and efficient long relief pitching from midweek senior Matt Farrington to claim a 13-4 victory. Farrington (2-4, 3.97) gave up only a run on six hits while striking out four in 4.2 innings of work.

It was also another breakout day for senior second baseman Isa Garcia, who went 4-for-6 with four RBIs and became the first UH player in more than seven years to hit for the cycle. He hit a two-run homer to left field in the first, crushed a triple in the sixth, knocked in a double in the seventh and capped the feat with a single up the middle in his final at-bat in the ninth.

There was nothing going for ECU (18-12, 2-4) on Friday night as Lincoln (6-1, 1.62) took the mound and struck out a season-high-tying 12 batters, while allowing only one unearned run in eight innings of work, as the Cougars held on for a 4-3 win. The bullpen ran into some trouble in the ninth, but junior Clayton Boone got ECU senior Jake Smith to fly out to left field with two runners in scoring position to end the threat and pick up his third save of the season.

The Cougars will take a day off before hosting McNeese State at Cougar Field on Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
 

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