May 21, 2003

Box Score

NEW ORLEANS - Matt Farrington's bases-loaded sacrifice fly drove in Greg Buchanan in the bottom of the ninth to lift Houston to a 2-1 win over East Carolina in the first game of the Conference USA Tournament at Tulane's Turchin Stadium on Wednesday.

Houston, the tournament's fourth seed, improved to 32-25 with the win and will face either Southern Miss or Charlotte in the winner's bracket on Thursday. East Carolina, the No. 5 seed, drops to 31-24-1 with the loss and will face the Southern Miss/Charlotte loser in an elimination game on Thursday at 9:00 a.m.

With the score tied at 1-1, Houston's Travis Tully started the bottom of the ninth with a single before being replaced by pinch-runner Greg Buchanan, who moved to second on Hyung Cho's sacrifice bunt. East Carolina intentionally walked Thanos Papavasiliou and Cole Bruce drew a walk to load the bases, setting up Farrington's game-winning plate appearance.

Houston took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third when Michael Bourn drew a two-out walk and moved to third when Tully singled off the foot of East Carolina pitcher Will Brinson. Cho followed with a single to score Bourn before Brinson got Papavasiliou to strike out looking to end the inning.

East Carolina knotted the score at 1-1 in the top of the eighth on Jamie Page's solo home run off of Houston reliever Ryan Wagner. It was the first home run Wagner has allowed all season and just the third home this season for Paige.

Wagner did pick up the win for the Cougars, posting four strikeouts in an inning and two-thirds of work. East Carolina's Will Brinson took the loss for the Pirates after giving up a pair of earned runs in eight innings of work. He also had eight strikeouts.

The game was a rematch of last season's Conference USA Tournament championship game, won 4-0 by East Carolina.

NOTES:
The loss was the first opening round defeat in a conference tournament losing losing to Richmond in the first round of the 1995 Colonial Athletic Association tourney.

With seven strikeouts today, UH's Brad Sullivan became just the second player in Conference USA history to record more than 400 career strikeouts. He raised his school record strikeout total to 404.

East Carolina  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 1 0  - 1  5  0
Houston        0 0 1  0 0 0  0 0 1  - 2  5  0

WP:  Ryan Wagner (4-5)
LP:  Will Brinson (3-4)