ECU baseball was just hitting stride before cancellation

For many student-athletes across the country, the COVID-19 virus provided them with their first spring break, in many cases, since they were in middle school. Unwelcomed to say the least for athletes who trained for months in preparation of the spring season, Monday’s cancellation of the remainder of games on the schedule only solidified what many saw coming.

Rapidly spreading across the United States and world as a whole, the coronavirus has thrown nearly everyone’s life into a tailspin. More so than most, athletes, like those on East Carolina University’s baseball team, are impacted by something that can be controlled very little by people attempting to do so.

“It is the call that needed to be made and I’m glad the American made it,” Corey Gloor, the Pirates’ play-by-play radio broadcaster, said. “It’s still just immensely disappointing that everything comes to a stop like this. Especially with where I sit and the baseball season and how the things that I feel like that team could have done this year, for it to just come to an end, is rough.”

Gut wrenching as it is to have the season cut short, things are made even tougher by the fact the Pirates were just beginning to find their stride on the diamond. While never in jeopardy of falling below .500 or into the cellar of the American Athletic Conference, it took ECU a couple weeks to find its footing offensively.

Relying instead on a stout pitching staff that head coach Cliff Godwin described as deeper than ever before prior to the campaign, the Pirates plated 51 runs or 5.1 runs per game across their first 10 contests. Culminating in a 7-3 record, ECU hit its “bottom” at the end of February, losing back-to-back games to Indiana University and the University of Mississippi to kick-off the Keith LeClair Classic.

Both well above average programs, they held ECU to a combined six runs and represented the only time the Pirates lost consecutive games in the abbreviated season. A 2-1 loss in a top-20 ranked match-up to Ole Miss, however, seemed to wake ECU’s bats up as the cancellation of spring sports left fans dreaming of Pirate baseball.

Over their final seven games, which included a six-game win streak, the Pirates pushed across 66 runs or 9.4 per game while holding opponents to 20 runs or 2.9 per game across that same time span.

While a walk-off loss to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington will forever be the way the shortened 2020 season ended, fans caught a glimpse of what this year’s version of the Pirates were capable of in both faucets.

Across 17 games, ECU slashed .317/.397/.441 as a team with 13 home runs. On the mound, their deep pitching staff, behind names like freshman left-handed pitcher C.J. Mayhue and redshirt senior Cam Colmore, posted a 3.12 team ERA, striking out 171 batters across 153 innings pitched.

Anchored by its torrid end to the campaign, ECU finished eighth in the country in team batting average, 41st in on-base percentage and tied for 41st in slugging percentage. Sticking to Godwin’s love of small ball, the Pirates also paced the nation in sacrifice bunts with 23 and finished the year first in fielding percentage with a .990 mark.

“We work on it (defense) every single day,” sophomore infielder Connor Norby said to Gary Overton on the radio after ECU’s 7-4 win over Elon on March 10. “We dive, we practice hard, we take BP hard. We’ll dive around in BP. If we need new pants or something before the game, we’ll put them on. That’s just how we go and how we practice and how we prepare.”

A .765 winning percentage placed ECU on track for 43 regular season wins, one more than last season’s squad accomplished in a run that would wrap-up with a Super Regional berth. Forever lost to the history books, we will never know if this team was destined to reach those same Super Regional heights or if, perhaps, this was the team to send ECU to its first College World Series.

What we do know, however, is that it featured high-caliber talent that seemed to be figuring things out about the time the campaign ended.

Strong showings against the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in a three-game sweep paved the way for junior left-handed pitcher/first baseman Alec Burleson, Norby and sophomore outfielder Lane Hoover to post gaudy numbers across the season’s last five contests.

Each notching 11-for-19 efforts in the five games before the season cancellation, Norby and Burleson finished the year one and two on the team in batting average among players with at least 50 at-bats. Sporting .403 and .375 marks respectively, Norby and Burleson hit nearly .600 to close the season while Hoover went 10-for-23 (.435) to wrap-up the year hitting .353.

“I feel like they were just starting to round into form as an offensive club,” Gloor said. “What it was, was a team that was borderline dominant on the mound and deep pitching-wise. We kind of figured it would be deep but it ran far further down the roster sheet than I think all of us were realizing it could.”

B7 | ⏪ That one got out in a hurry! Burleson helps extend the lead with a solo home run to right field. pic.twitter.com/qZMTLaUbb3

— ECU Baseball (@ECUBaseball) March 11, 2020

Perhaps most impressive, however, was the season junior outfielder Bryson Worrell was putting together. After struggling on Opening Day, the switch-hitting center fielder ended up slashing .373/.465/.729 with five home runs and 14 RBI. Pacing the team in both categories, Worrell also racked up six doubles as 11 of his 22 total hits went for extra bases.

With a rare combination of offensive firepower and a shutdown pitching staff, ECU was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in 2020. Ranked 24th in the final Baseball America poll of 2020, the Pirates had yet to fully earn the respect of the pollsters due, in part, to the 18 newcomers on the roster.

Despite contributions already showing up from guys like Mayhue and junior catcher Ben Newton, the prospect of losing Burleson, Worrell, junior catcher Seth Caddell and others to the Major League Baseball draft after a shortened season would be tough for fans and the program to swallow.

“I hope it’s not the last time we’ve seen them,” Jared Plummer, a long-time member of the Clark-LeClair jungle, said. “Really, if you think about it, we just want what’s best for those guys and I think Cliff would be the first one to say it too.”

Whatever decision the draft eligible players make, guys like Colmore and redshirt senior right-handed pitcher Matt Bridges will also be afforded an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. Still up in the air with how it will work in relation to roster size and scholarship restrictions, the option is available for those impact players to return to Greenville, North Carolina if they so choose.

That question, along with a slew of others must be answered before the Pirates take the field in 2021. As for right now, ECU fans are faced with five-plus months of a sports desert before football cranks up on Aug. 29.