GREENVILLE — The East Carolina baseball team picked up the pieces from a rare poor outing by Evan Kruczynski with a massive nine-run sixth inning to anchor a 14-7 victory against South Florida Friday night.

The Pirates (31-17-1, 11-6-1 American Athletic Conference) entered the sixth trailing 7-2, thanks to a three-run frame from the Bulls (21-18, 6-13 AAC). Kruczynski was chased from the mound in the inning and was charged with his fourth and fifth earned runs of the game. Reliever Sam Lanier conceded another run and things looked out of reach until the Pirate bats caught fire.

ECU brought 14 batters to the plate in the sixth and the first 11 reached safely while the first nine came around to score.

Garrett Brooks led off the frame with a double down the right-field line. Kirk Morgan, Parker Lamm, Charlie Yorgen and Eric Tyler each followed with consecutive singles. Lamm plated Brooks and Yorgen brought Wes Phillips, who pinch ran for Morgan, home.

USF starter Phoenix Sanders was pulled for reliever Andrew Perez after Tyler’s RBI single, locked into a 7-5 game. Perez proceeded to walk Bryce Harman to load the bases. He then issued a full-count, bases-loaded walk to Watkins in the next at bat to make it a one-run game.

Turner Brown (4-for-5) followed with an RBI single to tie the game as Tyler ran home from third. Dwanya Williams-Sutton, who reached base four times, brought in a run with his third walk of the game to put ECU on top for the first time in the game. The Pirates had brought nine to the plate without an out recorded and the damage was not done yet.

Garrett Brooks notched his second hit in the inning, scoring Watkins on the base knock. Brooks said, after chasing early-count pitches in the first few innings, waiting and seeing pitches helped change the game.

“We knew we needed to stay with our approach that we talked about before the game but we didn’t do that early in the game,” Brooks said. “We weren’t seeing the ball deep, our approach was to look middle away and we weren’t doing that early, but we made our adjustment and did a great job right there.”

Zack Mozingo replaced Phillips and was the 11th batter of the inning. He walked on five pitches and it was the third run USF allowed in the inning by way of walk. Williams-Sutton scored on a Lamm groundout to plate the ninth run of the inning. Dylan Burns retired the next three ECU batters to mercifully end the frame after nearly an hour of play.

“We wanted to get it within three because I felt like they’d bring in their closer,” ECU head coach Cliff Godwin said. “We wanted to see him because he’s very good and that was the message, but they went out and put up nine runs so I guess it worked.”

Kruczynski has five no decisions this season while allowing two or fewer runs. The junior ace said watching his team pick up the slack from his difficult outing was a good moment for him. The start snapped a string of 10 straight quality starts.

“The only win that matters is the one that goes in the total win column, not mine,” Kruczynski said. “As soon as I was pulled out of the game, Travis (Watkins) let me know, ‘Hey, we’re going to get you this time,’ and just like he said … that’s what we’re a team for.”

The Pirates tacked on another three runs in the eighth, started by Mozingo’s second home run of the season. A pair of wild pitches from Burns allowed Brady Lloyd and Charlie Yorgen to score and make it 14-7 for the final score.