The baseball team’s quick start against East Carolina on Tuesday night at Doak Field proved to be just enough to hold off a furious late rally by the Pirates in a 7-6 victory.

In a game where N.C. State once led 7-2, it all came down to an 0-2 pitch with two outs and the bases loaded in a one-run game in the top of the ninth. ECU’s Trent Whitehead watched Wolfpack freshman closer Jimmy Gillheeney’s only curve ball of the night go by for strike three, apparently finishing off the Pirates’ hopes.

“I hadn’t thrown a curve ball all night, and I figured it’d be a good pitch since no one had seen it,” Gillheeney said. “I tried to throw it as hard as I could. My adrenaline was just through the roof.”

Though Gillheeney had walked three batters, including an intentional walk, junior centerfielder Marcus Jones still said he had no doubt about his pitcher.

“He makes it pretty interesting, but he’s a guy that when there’s a tough spot in a close game near the end, we always want the ball in his hand because he knows what he has to do,” Jones said. “And he’s going to go right after people.”

But it turned out that even if Whitehead had hit a home run, it would not have counted because ECU batted out of order. ECU pitcher Josh Ruhlman was pulled from the mound in the eighth inning and moved to right field, which should have moved him into the rightfielder’s spot in the batting order. Instead, the Pirates had inserted him in the designated hitter’s spot, meaning a hit by Whitehead would not have counted. He would have still been out and the game still finished.

Coach Elliott Avent said he had plenty of faith in Gillheeney, but he wished the game had not come down to the final inning.

“You feel pretty comfortable with Jimmy Gillheeney out there. You’re a little disappointed the game got to that point,” Avent said. “When it’s 7-2, taking nothing away from their pitching, I just thought we gave some at-bats away maybe in the middle of the game.”

The Pirates got back into contention with four runs in the top of the eighth inning, all coming courtesy of a grand slam by Kyle Roller with no outs.

“Our club has come back all year. When we’re down 7-2, nobody in this dugout thought we were out of the game — I can tell you that,” East Carolina coach Billy Godwin said.

Roller was the first batter that pitcher Andrew Taylor faced when he entered the game for fellow pitcher Kyle Rutter, but Taylor bounced back by getting out the next three ECU hitters.

State would load the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth, but a fielder’s choice by Jeremy Synan and a infield popfly out by Jones ended the Pack’s threat and kept the game squarely within reach for the Pirates.

The contest had a sell-out crowd of 2,715 that packed out the Doak with a sea of purple and yellow mixed with the usual red and white, but up until the eighth inning those Pirates fans hadn’t had much to cheer about.

“That’s the best thing you can do for them right there, just keep them quiet,” junior Synan said. “It’s a good thing getting them here, and we’re glad to bring them here. It’s always been a good match-up.”

State thrived with two outs in the opening two innings of the game, scoring two runs in each of those innings to start building a lead it would never relinquish. In the first, it was back-to-back groundouts to the pitcher by sophomore Dallas Poulk and senior Ryan Pond before a walk by senior Matt Payne and singles by Synan, Jones and reshirt junior Pat Ferguson gave the team a 2-0 advantage.

In the second, State got two quick outs again, but an error and a wild pitch netted the team two more runs and a 4-0 lead.

The first time the Pack scored early in an inning came on a lead-off home run by Jones in the third, giving the team a 5-2 cushion after the Pirates scored a pair of two-out runs of their own in the top of the third.

After those opening innings, not much happened until the eighth as State extended its lead to 7-2.

Starting pitcher redshirt sophomore Alex Sogard went five and two-thirds innings, giving up two earned runs on three hits and striking out four — all of those strikeouts coming in the first innings — to earn the victory.

The win moves State to 24-11 on the season as it hosts Radford at 6:30 p.m. today before visiting Virginia Tech for a three-game series starting Friday. Avent said he hopes fans will keep showing up in large numbers like they did Tuesday.

“It’s nice playing in front of that kind of support, and I just hope we can get that kind of support the rest of the year when the weather warms up,” Avent said. “I just hope they’ll come out because we’re a fun team to watch.”