No. 6 East Carolina Drops 7-3 Decision At Tulane

NEW ORLEANS, La. – No. 6 East Carolina fell in the middle game of its series with host Tulane by a 7-3 score Saturday night inside Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. The Green Wave claimed the set after also winning Friday evening.
 
The Pirates (37-12, 16-7 AAC) remained two games ahead of UTSA for the league lead with four remaining as the Roadrunners lost to South Florida earlier in the day in San Antonio.
 
Chandler Welch (6-3) was the winning pitcher, producing a quality start of 7.1 innings during which he allowed just three earned runs on nine hits with a walk and six strikeouts. Jaden Winter (2-2) took the loss, giving up one earned run and striking out one batter in 1.0 innings.
 
Matthias Haas paced the home side with three hits, three runs scored and three RBI while Carter Cunningham and Jacob Starling registered two hits apiece for ECU.  
 
Tulane was first on the scoreboard as, in the top of the second, Haas singled to center, stole second and crossed home on a Colin Tuft RBI single. Gavin Schulz made it 2-0 in the bottom of the third with a two-out RBI single of his own, but the Pirates responded with a pair in the top of the fourth to tie the score. Cunningham and Ryley Johnson singled consecutively to lead off of the half inning before Jacob Jenkins-Cowart plated Cunningham with a sacrifice fly and Ryan McCrystal drove Johnson in via a sharp two-out single to right field.
 
Haas afforded his side the upper hand again in the bottom of the sixth with a leadoff home run before Teo Banks stretched the lead to 4-2 with another two out run scoring single. Luke Nowak gave East Carolina some life in the top of the seventh, reaching on a leadoff triple and scoring on a Joey Berini groundout, but the Green Wave notched three more runs over the final innings to seal the victory.
 

• East Carolina fell to 36-38 all time versus Tulane and will attempt to halt the Green Wave's three-game series winning streak in Sunday's finale.
• Tulane was 4-for-9 (.444) with runners in scoring position and hit .385 (5-for-13) with two outs.
• The Pirates were just 3-for-15 (.200) with runners on base and 2-for-11 (.182) with runners in scoring position.
• ECU dropped to 13-8 in true road games in 2024 as well as 6-5 in AAC away contests.
• The four-run margin of the defeat was the largest for the Pirates this season.

Up Next: East Carolina looks to salvage the series finale Sunday at 2 p.m.