March 12, 2013
GREENVILLE, N.C. – The Old Dominion University baseball team jumped out to an early lead and held on late to defeat East Carolina on Tuesday evening at Clark-LeClair Stadium, 5-3.
Old Dominion (9-5), now winners of six of their last eight games, came out victorious for third consecutive year in Greenville on Tuesday.
Freshman left-hander Connor Myers cranked his second homer of the season over the right field fence.
The Monarchs added another run in the fifth on an Austin McGowan RBI single up the middle that scored Michael Perez. Junior third baseman Jordan Negrini hit his first homer in an ODU uniform to lead off the seventh inning to left field and two runs would come around to score later that frame when sophomore leftfielder Josh Eldridge smacked a two-run triple to right center field brining home Perez and McGowan to make the lead 5-0.
East Carolina (9-6) would get three runs of their own in the bottom of the seventh as the Pirates loaded the bases against freshman right-hander Tommy Alexander. A two-run double by Dylan Brown off new pitcher junior right-hander Brandon Smith in the bottom of the ninth as they loaded the bases with one out. Smith was able to induce a foul out to first base and fly out to left to end the threat and record his fourth save of the season.
Eldrige, McGown and Perez each collected two hits in the game while Negrini went 3-for-4 to lead Old Dominion. Brown went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI while Nick Thompson went 3-for-3 with a run for the Pirates. ECU starter Nick Durazo (0-1) took the loss, allowing two runs and six hits in 6.0 innings to go with a walk and three strikeouts.
Old Dominion continues their road swing on Wednesday when travel to Raleigh for a 6 p.m. start at 18th-ranked North Carolina State.
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