No. 12 ECU completes sweep at Tulane with 6-1 win

BOX SCORE (.pdf)

NEW ORLEANS – Tulane baseball dropped its American Athletic Conference series finale to No. 12 ECU, 6-1, Sunday afternoon at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.

Sophomore Trent Johnson gave the Green Wave (22-27, 7-11 American) a clutch relief performance, holding the Pirates scoreless for four innings and allowing just one run through 4.2 frames. Sophomore designated hitter Grant Mathews went 2-for-3, junior first baseman Trevor Jensen drove in a run and sophomore second baseman Jonathon Artigues doubled and scored for the Wave.

ECU (33-12, 11-7 American) totaled 11 hits and scored two runs in the first inning and three in the third before adding one in the eighth. Tulane finished with five hits and three errors.

“Three of the first five runs they scored were unearned, then we went to the bullpen and they beat us 1-0 from the fourth inning on,” Tulane head coach Travis Jewett said. “We just couldn’t get anything going offensively, and they didn’t give us anything.”

Artigues led off the bottom of the first with a double to right field, then scored on Jensen’s infield single in response to ECU’s two runs in the top of the first inning. The Green Wave, however, only managed three hits the rest of the way. Mathews lined a single to right in the second and a base hit to right center in the seventh, and junior right fielder Tyler Heinrichs singled in the fifth.

Johnson entered the game to start the fourth inning with the Wave trailing 5-1 and allowed just two hits over four scoreless frames. He sat down 12 of 13 batters from the end of the fourth to the eighth innings, working around a one-out single in the sixth. It was the third long relief outing in a row for Johnson, who has posted a 2.55 ERA in 17.2 innings across those three appearances.

ECU took advantage of a defensive miscue in the first and first baseman Spencer Brickhouse hit a two-run home run to right field. Another error in the third allowed three runs to score, as second baseman Brady Lloyd hit an RBI single and catcher Seth Caddell hit a sacrifice fly. Caddell singled home a run in the eighth to make the score 6-1.

Senior Sam Bjorngjeld retired the final four ECU batters, getting a strikeout to end the eighth and strand two runners, and sitting down the Pirates in order in the ninth. Tulane starter Josh Bates (2-2) took the loss while ECU starter Tyler Smith (7-1) earned the win, allowing a run in 5.0 innings.

The Green Wave was swept in a conference series for the first time in its four years as a member of the American Athletic Conference. Tulane was the last American Conference team to lose all three games of a conference series in the league’s five-year history.

Tulane has the midweek off for finals before returning to action next weekend against Memphis in a three-game American Athletic Conference series at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. Game times are 6:30 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.

Follow Green Wave Baseball on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat (TulaneBaseball). Follow Tulane Athletics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

ECU 6, Tulane 1 (May 06, 2018 at New Orleans, La.)
———————————————————————-
ECU…………….. 203 000 010 – 6 11 0 (33-12, 11-7)
Tulane………….. 100 000 000 – 1 5 3 (22-27, 7-11)
———————————————————————-
Pitchers: ECU – SMITH, Tyler; AGNOS, Jake(6); BENTON, Trey(9) and CADDELL, Seth. Tulane –
BATES, Josh; JOHNSON, Trent(4); BJORNGJELD, Sam(8) and NIEMANN, Frankie.
Win-SMITH, Tyler(7-1) Loss-BATES, Josh(2-2) T-2:57 A-1602
HR ECU – BRICKHOUSE, Spencer (7).
Weather: 78 Sunny, Wind NNW @ 9 mph