The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
East Carolina
UAB Baseball Drops Series Opener At East Carolina, 6-3
4/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 16, 2010
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GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Jamal Austin went 3-for-5 at the plate Friday night, but the UAB baseball team dropped a 6-3 decision to No. 26 East Carolina in the first game of this weekend's Conference USA baseball series at Clark-LeClair Stadium.
Austin scored two of UAB's three runs on the night and drove in another, and the sophomore center fielder has now hit safely in 10 consecutive games with multiple hits in seven of those. Ryan Ussery also had two hits for the Blazers.
UAB tried to put together a late rally with two outs in the ninth inning. Three straight hits from Austin, Nick Crawford and Jonathan Merritt plated UAB's third run of the night and brought the tying run to the plate. But East Carolina's Seth Simmons recorded his third strikeout of the inning to end the threat and preserve the win.
"We didn't play fundamentally sound offensive baseball tonight," UAB head coach Brian Shoop said. "East Carolina got bunts down and executed their situational hitting, and we didn't. If we come out and do those things the way we need to, we'll give ourselves a chance in these next two games."
UAB (20-13, 5-5 C-USA) and East Carolina (22-12, 4-3 C-USA) resume their three-game series with game two Saturday at 5 p.m. ET. Fans can follow the action through Gametracker live stats and All-Access streaming video at uabsports.com.
The Blazers got off to a positive start Friday when Austin led off the game with a single up the middle, moved to second on his league-leading 18th stolen base and scored on a double from John Frost. But UAB didn't manage another run until the seventh inning against East Carolina starter Zach Woods.
Woods struck out seven batters over the next five frames, facing four batters or fewer in all of them, before UAB picked up its next run on an RBI double from Austin in the seventh. The ECU right-hander improved to 5-1 on the year.
The Blazers had a chance for more in the seventh with runners at second and third and one out after Austin's double, but Pirate reliever Shawn Armstrong came on to induce a pop up and a ground out to get out of the jam. For the game, UAB out-hit East Carolina, 10-6, but the Blazers stranded a total of 10 runners.
UAB starter Mitch Kloskowski yielded six hits, the same number as Woods, but the Pirate hits came in pairs to do more damage.
Back-to-back doubles from John Wooten and Devin Harris accounted for one second-inning run, and Harris later scored on a sacrifice fly from Cameron Freeman to give East Carolina the lead. Freeman was also in on the fifth-inning scoring as he and Corey Thompson each recorded RBI singles. The Pirates then added a run in the seventh when a two-out double from Jared Avchen plated Trent Whitehead, who had reached on a two-out single.
East Carolina tacked on another run in the eighth against Kloskowski, who worked seven and one-third innings in the loss.
Despite the loss, UAB continued its strong play in the field. The Blazers turned in their fourth errorless game in the past five and their 13th of the season.
