GREENVILLE — East Carolina’s offense got back on track Saturday afternoon in a 6-4 win over American Athletic Conference front-runner Cincinnati.

While the offense dropped in 13 hits, Jimmy Boyd went to work on the mound and scattered four hits, two walks and six strikeouts over six innings. During Boyd’s outing, no Cincinnati base runner reached third base.

“Getting ahead was big for me today and my curveball was with me at times,” Boyd said following the win. “I was getting my weight back and staying in my pitches, not just falling off, that was really the biggest difference for me.”

Both walks issued by Boyd came in the seventh inning, where he threw just eight pitches. ECU head coach Cliff Godwin called on Matt Bridges from the bullpen with two on in a 6-0 game. Bridges worked out of the frame quickly as he got Cole Murphy to fly out to right field and induced a double play ball off the bat of pinch hitter A.J. Bumpass to end the inning and the threat.

The freshman then pitched a strong eighth inning and struck out the Bearcats’ three and four hitters. Bridges surrendered the first Cincinnati run of the game in the ninth inning and was pulled in favor of Chris Holba. Holba surrendered a single to Manny Rodriguez that scored Woody Wallace. Murphy followed with a two-run blast to right field to make it a two-run game with no outs in the ninth.

Godwin turned to his closer, Joe Ingle, who retired three straight Bearcat batters to end the game. Ingle earned his ninth save of the season and helped put ECU in a position to possibly cease control of the conference with a win tomorrow.

The Pirate offense jumped on Cincy starter J.T. Perez early and often in his outing. The first four ECU batters of the game reached base and, with the bases loaded, Perez hit Jeff Nelson to plate Turner Brown. The Pirates left the bases loaded in the opening frame and would go on to leave 13 men on base.

ECU tacked on two runs in the second inning as it capitalized on a fielding error by second baseman Kyle Mottice. Charlie Yorgen moved to second and Bryce Harman advanced to third on the play. Parker Lamm’s groundout scored Harman from third and a Turner Brown single made it a 3-0 game.

Luke Bolka led off the third inning with a double to left field, advanced to third on a Nelson single and came around to score with a Yorgen groundout RBI. In the sixth inning, ECU finished its scoring.

Cincinnati called on Jarod Yoakam, a right-handed reliever, and Godwin turned to Zack Mozingo to replace Bolka. Mozingo ripped a two-RBI single to right field to score Eric Tyler and Travis Watkins.

“(Mozingo and I) do a lot of our work together and we’re pretty good friends,” Bolka said. He exclusively faces left handed pitching in a split designated hitting role with Mozingo. “It’s always good seeing a teammate be successful.”