UTSA And East Carolina Prevail For The American In NCAA Regional Opening Play
As we look across the 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament, we look to the American Athletic Conference, and its participants, the UTSA RoadRunners and East Carolina Pirates. As we previewed previously, the American has great talent within its conference, and these two programs are proving this statement. In both NCAA Regionals, the Pirates and RoadRunners snatched wins in their opening games.
We will briefly recap these wins and discuss the next team.
East Carolina Pirates
East Carolina entered this bracket as one of the hottest teams, having run through the American Baseball Tournament before Conway and the Coastal Regional. With the draw of the Florida Gators, of the SEC, many across the nation questioned if this run would come to an end. We at 4 Star Sports predicted on our podcast, “The Sports Buffet”, that the Pirates’ streak of success was a factor, and ECU would prevail.
On Friday, East Carolina wasted no time in making a statement. The Pirates’ offense erupted for at least two runs in each of the four innings. This production was propelled by the bat of a freshman for East Carolina. We saw a career day for the first baseman, Austin Irby, as he went 4-5 from the plate, including a double, home run, and three RBI’s. In addition, the career day saw Irby cross the plate three times himself in the dominating win. Irby became the first Pirate with four hits in an NCAA Regional since Joey Berini did so against Oklahoma in the Charlottesville 2023 Regional.
With the runs aplenty, the Pirates’ pitching and defense stifled the Gators despite the 6 allowed runs. Pirates starter, Ethan Norby, did not disappoint from the mound in the win. The 6’9 sophomore allowed three runs while whiffing 10 Gators, along with no walks through his 7 innings of work. His 116 pitches on the day is a career-high, and the double-digit strikeouts are the third time he has achieved this in a Pirates uniform.
Up next for the Pirates is the hosting Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. This comes after Coastal dismantled Fairfield 10-2 in game 2 of the opening day of play. Florida and Fairfield will meet start day two of play, in the losers bracket, in an elimination game. First pitch of game one is at 2 p.m., with the loser of the game going home. The winner will face the loser of game two, which is the winners’ bracket, starting at 6 p.m.
Feel free to click the attached link above to listen to how we here at 4 Star Sports feel these Regionals will unfold for East Carolina.
UTSA RoadRunners
We now head to Austin, Texas, as the Longhorns host the Austin Regional. In game one of the day, we saw the host defeat Houston Christian, 7-1, to advance to the winners’ bracket. Game two featured the RoadRunners and the Kansas State Wildcats. In yet another Regional, the American has to prove themselves, and they did.
In their fourth ever appearance at this level of competition, the RoadRunners remained as they have all season, mature and ready for the moment. UTSA head coach Pat Hallmark has commented this season about how his team has been “unreasonably mature”, and this showed in the win. Behind a 3-run sixth inning and a 4-run seventh, the RoadRunners pulled away from the Wildcasts for a 10-2 final. The win is the first-ever NCAA postseason victory for the program. Entering the Friday contest, UTSA was 0-6 in games played.
In the third, the RoadRunners saw Norris McClure drive an opposite field home run to extend the lead to two runs, up 2-0. This hit also extended his hit streak to 24 games. In the fourth inning, the Wildcats got on the scoreboard behind a sacrifice. A defensive error by the Wildcats led to the third run being scored by UTSA. This was followed by the 10th home run of the season, and second hit of the day, for James Taussig as he sent a moonshot to center field and extended the lead to 6-1 for the RoadRunners.
A solo home run from Kansas State in the top of the seventh cut the deficit to four, with the score to 6-2 at that time. More errors defensively for the Wildcats haunted them in the bottom half of the seventh after two runs had been plated by UTSA. This is when a walk and wild pitch was followed up with the error. With this, the Wildcats saw the score eclipse the double-digit mark as UTSA was up 10-2.
This now sets up a Texas two-step in the winners’ bracket. As we mentioned before, feel free to click the above link to the Regional preview show, where we make predictions and give analysis. In their history, the RoadRunners are 7-26 versus the Longhorns. This includes the 8-7 victory in 12 innings on March 18th, also in Austin.
On Saturday, day two of play, the loser bracket game will take place between Houston Christian and Kansas State. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. Central time. The nightcap, the winner bracket, is scheduled for an 8 p.m. first pitch.
We will have more on the 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament soon on our podcast and through more analysis such as this.
