By Michael Prunka

Sports Intern

The offensive woes that plagued East Carolina (10-11, 3-3 Conference-USA) at the beginning of the season are gradually evaporating. The Pirates found the offensive explosion they were looking for in the form of an 18-run performance in Saturday’s doubleheader, but now must aim for consistency at the plate.

The road to last weekend’s turnaround was a bumpy one. ECU started the season with an 8-9 record, and was able to climb back up to .500, taking Saturday’s two games against Tulane. Of those first 17 games, nine were decided by a single run—four of those decisions being losses.

Then, in the bottom of the sixth inning of Game 1 on Saturday, ECU finally found the moment it was hoping would spark production at the plate. With two outs, Ian Townsend singled up the middle. Ben Fultz scored on the play to extend the Pirates’ lead to 2-0 in a game they’d win 5-2. Townsend would notch another RBI single in the eighth and come around to score, finishing the day with three runs and seven RBI.

“Our bats have been quiet lately,” said Townsend. “So, having two games like this, coming off a losing streak, is huge. It feels great.”

“We did a nice job,” added manager Billy Godwin after Saturday’s two contests. “Sometimes momentum is important and we did a nice job carrying momentum from Game 1 to Game 2. Momentum is huge. We talk about it all the time. I challenged them [Friday] that somebody needed to step up and create our own break or carry the momentum. We had several guys do that [Saturday].”

As nice as it was to have the offense finally break loose, the energy from Saturday didn’t carry into Wednesday’s game. Instead, it showed that consistency is going to be whole different struggle for the Pirates, and ECU’s mid-week rematch with VCU on Wednesday proved that. The Pirates dropped an 8-4 decision to fall back below .500.

This time around, it was actually the defense that cost the Pirates. They committed five errors that allowed VCU to score six unearned runs, which proved to be enough for the Rams to seal the win. While ECU certainly needs to avoid miscues in the field, that’s much less of a recurring problem than failing to capitalize on offense.

Despite giving up six runs as a result of poor fielding, the Pirates had a shot to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Bryce Harman, who hit two homeruns in Saturday’s doubleheader, struck out looking with the bases loaded to end the game.

With that, ECU hits the road for a weekend conference series versus Charlotte. Just like this past weekend against Tulane, the plan is to take the series and, in this case, return to Greenville with a winning record.

Fortunately, Charlotte is a good club for the Pirates to face if they’re trying to establish consistency at the dish. The 49ers (3-13-1, 0-6 C-USA) have gotten off to an even rockier start. They’ve only won three of 11 games on their own field and have yet to claim a single conference win.