A crowd of 9,000 stood on its feet and watched Dallas Woolfolk work swiftly on the mound, locating a mid-90s a fastball on both sides of the plate. The sophomore right-hander had inherited a bases loaded mess with no one out in the eighth inning, relieving Greer Holston in a game that Ole Miss led 8-6.
“The crowd started cheering, and it pumped me up. I was ready for it,” Woolfolk said.
It was a chance for East Carolina to regain control of a game it once led 6-2 just two innings prior. Three Pirate runners occupied the bases only to watch Woolfolk pump fastball after fastball into the mitt of catcher Nick Fortes, mixing in a sharp slider to keep the top of the ECU lineup off balance. He struck out three consecutive hitters to get Ole Miss out of a pinch, and his six-out save clinched an 8-6 win for the Rebels as well as a sweep of 10th-ranked East Carolina.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more dominant performance. I don’t know if there can be,” head coach Mike Bianco said. “With the situation, and the talented team that he is facing and to strike out five out of six right there in the middle of their lineup, it was just terrific.”
East Carolina jumped on Ole Miss starter Brady Feigl out of the gate, plating two runs in the opening inning on a two-RBI base hit from Travis Watkins. Feigl made it five innings and was responsible for five runs on nine hits. He weathered a shaky start, but the Pirates got to him in the middle innings.
Ole Miss answered with two of its own in the bottom half of the second inning when Cole Zabowski followed a Thomas Dillard single with a two-run shot over the fence off East Carolina starter Trey Benton, who was chased from the game in the same inning.
It forced East Carolina to go deep into its bullpen, throwing six different guys after Benton.
“We pitched well out of the bullpen, and that wasn’t unexpected. We knew with Stokes, Woolfolk, Green and Pagnozzi being the returns, those were the guys in the pen last year. But also with Rolison, Holston, Ethridge was warming up at the end. We felt comfortable about the bullpen.”
Bianco tapped into that deep bullpen when the Pirates ran Feigl out of the game in what was part of a four-run sixth inning. It looked like East Carolina had gained control and would salvage a game of this series. But Ole Miss quickly answered with a blend of young and old. Will Golsan plated Colby Bortles, Zabowski quickly followed with a two-RBI single following a Thomas Dillard walk.
Ryan Olenek finished the job when he shot a double into the right-center gap that plated the tying and go ahead runs with two outs in the bottom half of the sixth inning.
East Carolina gifted Ole Miss with an insurance run in the seventh, prior to its bases-loaded threat in the top half of the eighth. It was the most crucial moment in the game, and Woolfolk rose to the occasion. He completely dominated the heart of the East Carolina order and picked up his first save of the season.
Weekend takeaways: The sixth inning was really a microcosm of the entire weekend in the sense that every time East Carolina threw a punch, Ole Miss immediately answered with one of its own. The Pirates had just issued a four-run blow, and it looked like they had finally taken control. But the resiliency in this young team showed again.
A talented freshman class played with poise and was productive, as well. Kessinger had three hits on Sunday. Thomas Dillard was 4-8 with a pair of doubles and an RBI on the weekend. Zabowski had 4 RBIs on Sunday. Cooper Johnson picked off two men behind the plate and threw another one out stealing.
“He’s a difference maker,” Bianco said. “If you remember a few years back, we had a guy named Stuart Turner, very similar. Great receiver, great blocker and a guy that they don’t make any attempts to steal on. He changes the game defensively. There are a lot of good catchers, but there aren’t a lot of guys that change the game defensively like that.”
The freshmen were at the epicenter of the sixth inning comeback on Sunday, with hits from Olenek and Golsan blended in.
“I’m proud of the way we handled a lot of things. We made some mistakes, and certainly there are things to correct, but for the most part against a very good East Carolina team, I thought we handled the pressure well,” Bianco said.
There was a lot of uncertainty going into the weekend. How would the freshmen play? They were tested with a top-10 team out of the gate and answered the call in a big way.
“I think that is what the weekend was about. You didn’t know what you were going to get. You hoped that you’d get what you got in practice. You hoped a Grae Kessinger, and a Cooper Johnson, and a Thomas Dillard and others that play like they played the last sixth months on campus,” Bianco said. “But you don’t always get that. Especially with the pressure, 33,000 people over the weekend which is unbelievable. Even though they are your fan, I think it adds to the pressure and I thought they handled it well.”
The bullpen was the biggest asset to a team that narrowly missed out on a national seed last season. It appears early on that it may be even deeper this season. Woolfolk was dominant. Will Stokes picked up two saves, and Andy Pagnozzi got Ole Miss out of a bases-loaded jam on Saturday with a big ground ball, and he bridged the gap to Woolfolk and Stokes in the late innings.
The entire bullpen tossed 10.2 innings of relief, and allowed just two earned runs on six hits. Ole Miss made one of the loudest statements in college baseball this weekend with a sweep of an East Carolina team that returned seven starters and two weekend arms from a 2016 team that nearly made it to Omaha.
“They’re all good when you win them,” Bianco said. “But I am proud. So much was said about this young team and not many older guys. I thought everyone played well.”
