GREENVILLE — Joe Ingle’s two-inning save Sunday afternoon nailed down a 5-3 victory for the East Carolina baseball team and a series sweep over Longwood to open the season.

Ingle and Nick Durazo handed in four innings of work out of the bullpen and allowed just one run on four hits to move the Pirates to a perfect 3-0 record to start the season.

“Any time you can sweep a team, it’s awesome,” said ECU head coach Cliff Godwin. “You saw this close one today, and it’s good for our guys to be in that situation.”

After Longwood opened up to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning off Pirate starter Jimmy Boyd, ECU responded in the bottom half of the frame.

The four, five and six hitters in ECU’s lineup each recorded an RBI as junior Bryce Harman knocked in Parker Lamm with an RBI single to left-center field. Eric Tyler followed with a single that delivered Travis Watkins from third and freshman Dwanya Williams-Sutton plated Harman with a sacrifice fly.

Boyd settled in after the first and faced the minimum batters in the next three innings. He was pulled after reaching 75 pitches in favor of Durazo. The senior southpaw struck out five of the nine batters he faced and allowed the lone relief run with two outs in his second inning of work.

Connar Bastaich hit a double down the left field line for Longwood to start the seventh inning before Durazo got a pair of Lancers to strikeout. However, Longwood catcher Mac MacCafferty blooped a single in front of center fielder Garrett Brooks to bring Bastaich home from second.

Locked into a 4-3 game, Watkins delivered a clutch two-out RBI of his own in the bottom of the seventh. After Charlie Yorgen reached base with a single into right field, Watkins stretched out and dropped a pitch down the right field line that hung up long enough to allow Yorgen to score from first.

Watkins said he was looking to expand his zone in his final at-bat after striking out in his last plate appearance.

“The funny thing is, as I was rolling into second base, (Longwood’s) shortstop asked me, ‘Was that down the middle?’ and I said ‘No, it was off,’” Watkins said. “He said ‘Well it was supposed to be a pitchout’ so I just tried to expand the zone, put the ball in play and it worked out for us.”

Boyd allowed the first three batters of the game to reach base on consecutive singles. C.J. Roth, Colton Konvicka and Michael Osinski all reached and Osinski’s hit allowed Roth to score from second. Konvicka moved to third on the RBI and he scored on a double play ball that took Osinski off the base paths.

“Close games are good for our guys, never good for the coaching staff. We lose hair and lose sleep,” Godwin said after the win. “We played really good defensively today, we pitched really well and offensively we did enough.”

The Pirates will be back in action Wednesday against North Carolina A&T at home. Godwin said he is fairly sure of who will start the first midweek test of the season but has not yet announced his pitcher against the Aggies.