Mourelle, FIU Finish ECU

By David Furones

Special to CollegeBaseballInsider.com

 

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Florida International snapped a nine-game losing streak in the NCAA Tournament and staved off elimination with its first Tournament victory since 2001.

 

In a pitchers’ duel for most of the afternoon, FIU, the No. 4 seed in the Coral Gables Regional, scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth, and that was enough to outlast No. 25 East Carolina 2-0 on Saturday at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field.

 

FIU (30-30), which made the Tournament as a conference champion with four consecutive wins in the Conference USA Tournament, advances to face the loser of Saturday night’s Miami-Columbia game in another elimination game at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

 

“It was a great feeling last Sunday to be able to get into the Regional because we haven’t been in it with this group of players,” FIU coach Turtle Thomas said. “Guys like Julius Gaines that have been here four years, Edwin Rios three years … It’s a great feeling for the players because that’s who wins baseball games.”

 

ECU (40-22), winners of the American, went two-and-out as the No. 2 seed in the Regional. The Pirates had won at least one game in 14 of their previous 15 Regionals.

 

Starters Reid Love and Chris Mourelle battled through seven shutout innings. Both teams got in position to score in the eighth, but only FIU was able to capitalize.

 

Love made his exit after allowing a pair of one-out singles to Rios and Brian Portelli. Joe Ingle then surrendered an RBI single to left-center by Josh Anderson that allowed the go-ahead run to score.

 

“Ingle was coming at us with fastballs up in the zone, and you just jump on those,” Anderson said. “We kind of knew we just had to put one on the board just because we had Mourelle pitching and then [closer Danny Dopico] – we knew they couldn’t touch him.”

 

Said Ingle: “I was just trying to come in, get a ground ball and get out of the inning. I left a couple of pitches up, got hit.”

 

The Panthers added one more with an Austin Rodriguez two-out single that scored Portelli. Rodriguez finished 2 for 4 as one of two Panthers with multiple hits – Rios also went 2 for 4.

 

Both runs were charged to Love (7-4), who was hit with the loss with five strikeouts, six hits and two walks in 7.1 innings pitched.

 

Dopico (3-4) earned the win after getting out of the eighth inning with one out and a man in scoring position by striking out the two batters he faced and watching his Panthers take the lead in the bottom of the inning. Dopico struck out two more in ninth, including Bryce Harman looking to eliminate the Pirates.

 

Mourelle, the C-USA Freshman of the Year last season who led all FIU starters in ERA as a sophomore, went 7.1 shutout innings, striking out three while walking none and giving up six hits.

 

“I threw a lot of fastballs today compared to most days,” Mourelle said. “I was pretty much throwing everything. Everything was working.”

 

Added coach Turtle Thomas: “He was a surgeon today. He just stayed after it and kept throwing strikes.”

 

Mourelle allowed a leadoff single in the eighth to Garrett Brooks, who had three of ECU’s seven hits, and was then pulled in favor of Dopico after Brooks advanced to second on a hit-and-run groundout.

 

East Carolina didn’t score there or in the sixth when the Pirates had runners on second and third with one out and its three- and four-hole hitters coming up, but Mourelle got Love on a nasty breaking ball and then retired Kirk Morgan on a lineout to center.

 

FIU missed out on a scoring opportunity in the fourth with the bases loaded and one out. Rodriguez lined out to left on a play that made for a borderline decision to tag up from third for Rios, but he was held up on a strong, charging throw by Luke Lowery. Eddie Silva then popped out to second to end the threat.

 

The feeling around the two ECU seniors starting Saturday, Love and shortstop Hunter Allen, was that they set the table well for an otherwise young group that will be returning to expand on their first Regional appearance since 2012.

 

“We’re back on the map a little bit,” said Allen, who went 1 for 4. “We just have to keep working and push those guys and keep motivating them. We can’t be satisfied with what we’ve done this year.”

 

Added ECU first-year coach Cliff Godwin: “People will talk about these guys 10 years from now. When Reid Love, Hunter Allen, Joe Ingle come back, people will be like, ‘Oh man, you were on that team that won 40 games and put East Carolina baseball back on the map.’ That’s what it’s all about, and I’m super proud of them.”

 

Game Notes

·        ECU’s third inning ended in unconventional fashion with a second out on an attempted inning-ending double play called due to runner’s interference. Garrett Brooks slid slightly to the right of second base on a groundball by Hunter Allen, and although he didn’t come in contact with FIU shortstop Julius Gaines and was well within arm’s length reach of the bag, had interference called on him because in college – as opposed to MLB – the runner must slide directly into the base when breaking up a double play.

·        Godwin’s take on the interference call: “The slide was straight into the bag, and the rule states that if you slide straight into the bag, there’s no interference. [The umpire] obviously didn’t look down at the slide. There was a spot [slightly] off the bag that was out of the baseline, so I guess that’s considered getting out of the baseline.”

·        While Thomas didn’t announce a Sunday afternoon starter, conventional wisdom would tell you that it would be his only remaining weekend starter, Cody Crouse (5-5, 4.02 ERA).