Meredith Burroughs

Senior infielder Meredith Burroughs running bases in previous game.

The East Carolina University softball team upset the No. 1 team in the American Athletic Conference, taking home an AAC series victory over the University of South Florida with a walk-off win.

USF (32-18, 10-5 AAC) scored its only two runs of the game in the fourth inning and the Pirates followed with two runs of their own in the fifth inning. The Pirates (21-26, 7-8 AAC) sealed the win in the seventh inning with one additional run, coming out victorious with a walk-off 3-2 win. The Pirates have won six of their past seven games.

“The plan is to win every game,” head coach Courtney Oliver said. “USF is really good team. They can pitch it and they can swing it a bit.”

Freshman infielder Ashleigh Inae went 2-for-3 on the day, including a two-run homer to tie the game. ECU capitalized on four USF errors with great base running to make every error count. The Pirates propelled themselves through amazing pitching and only allowed one walk to slip away, with two strikeouts all game. The teams combined to go 2-for-4 with a runner on third and less than two outs.

On Saturday, the Strikeout Cancer game, ECU scored all three of its runs in the third inning and USF scored its two in the fourth. Freshman pitcher Erin Poepping pitched the entire game to earn her 10th win in the circle as ECU squeaked out a 3-2 win. Poepping closed out the game with three strikeouts, no walks and propelled ECU to a victory. In game two, senior infielder Meredith Burroughs and Inae took control at bat and scored two of their three runs. Sophomore redshirt Tate McClellan brought in Burroughs and Inae within her three times up at bat. All three players recorded three hits and have been very consistent up at bat throughout the entire season

“They fought back. They didn’t cave in,” Oliver said. “If it weren't for Inae and Burroughs hitting the ball hard, because there were two back to back errors, they hit the ball square on the knob and they were the reason why Tate was able to score those runs”.

The first game of the series on Friday was the Pirates only loss on the weekend, falling 7-3. USF started the scoring with one run in each the fourth and fifth inning. The Pirates took the lead after posting three runs throughout the fifth and six innings, but fell apart in the final inning and surrendered five runs on just four hits to USF in the top of the seventh.

Burroughs was a top performer for ECU this game as she went 1-for-3 at bat and recorded her 29th home run as a Pirate. Six batters were walked by ECU and was the Bulls eighth straight win over the Pirates until the second and third games of the weekend.

ECU matched its most league victories in a single season since winning seven in 2015, its first year in the AAC. The Pirates will continue their season with an in-state rivalry game tomorrow against North Carolina State University (22-25).

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