No.15 ranked East Carolina University (16-6, 1-2 American Athletic Conference) is set to take on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (11-12, 1-2 American Athletic Conference) this weekend from March 28-30. East Carolina fell 5 spots in NCAA’s D1 baseball ranking after dropping 2 out of 3 games against the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The Pirates will look to sweep last weekend’s series under the rug and focus on potentially coming out with 3 wins in this favorable matchup. UAB is 3-5 when they go on the road, and have also lost the last 3 out of 5 games they've played.
First pitch of game 1 is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday with East Carolina looking to make a statement. Game 2 of the series will also be started at 6 p.m. the next day, and the final game will be a quick turnaround for the Pirates on Saturday with a 12 p.m. start time.
East Carolina will have home field advantage as they play all 3 games of the series at Clark-LeClair stadium in Greenville. This is particularly favorable as East Carolina is 9-1 at home, and just 6-5 when they go on the road.
Dixon Williams squares up for an oncoming pitch.
The last time ECU faced off against UAB was in 2013, where the Pirates won 3 straight games against them. The University of Alabama at Birmingham recently joined the American Athletic conference on July 1, 2023 of last year, making this a conference series. East Carolina has an overall record of 28-6 against UAB, looking to add more to the win column.
The Pirates will look to ride the hot bats of their star players, senior 1st baseman Carter Cunningham, and junior catcher Ryan McCrystal. Not only will the offense need to be clicking, East Carolina needs to make sure their pitchers take care of business.
Carter Cunningham has had a blistering start to the season, with a .422 batting average, and totalling 38 hits on the season. Ryan McCrystal has a batting average of .395 with 7 hits coming in the last 3 games against UTSA, 4 of them being RBI’s.
Following the series against UAB, East Carolina will be facing off against in-state rival North Carolina State University (15-7, 5-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) on the road at Dail Park stadium in Raleigh, N.C. With a tough test against NC State, East Carolina will want to take care of business in this 3 game series against UAB while they are at home.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.