BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (April 14, 2024) – The tandem of
Cameron Sisneros (two home runs, seven RBI) and
Owen Kovacs (career-high 5.2 innings pitched, one run allowed) helped lead the ETSU baseball team to a 13-9 win at Samford on Sunday afternoon. With Sunday's victory, the Buccaneers improve to 21-12 overall and 6-6 in SoCon play. Furthermore, it marks Samford's first loss in conference play this season moving their record to 8-1 in league play.
Sisneros finished the day going for 2-for-5 with those two home runs and seven RBI. Sisneros has now driven in 52 runs this season has hit a team-leading 12 home runs.
Nick Iannantone,
Tommy Barth, and
Ashton King all had two hits as well.
Noah Gent slugged his third home run of the weekend, while
Noah Webb reached base in all five of his plate appearances with two walks, a pair of singles and a home run of his own.
Michael Harpster started Sunday's game for ETSU. Harpster worked the first 3.1 innings and allowed eight runs on five hits and struck out five on the day. Kovacs followed Harpster and took the game the rest of the way tossing a career-high 5.2 innings. Kovacs held the Bulldog offense to one run on six hits on his way to picking up his second win of the 2024 season.
It'd be hard to top the start that ETSU had on Sunday. The Bucs sent 14 hitters to the plate in the top of the first thanks to seven hits, two hit batters and two walks. Sisneros hammered a three-run home run after Iannantone and Barth reached base in front of him to bring around the first three runs of the day.
Cody Miller scored the fourth run of the inning on a wild pitch before King and Iannantone added to ETSU's lead with a pair of RBI singles. ETSU was not done there, however, as Sisneros came up again this time with the bases loaded and hit his second home run of the inning to make the score 10-0 before the Bulldogs had their first at-bats of the afternoon.
Facing a large early deficit, the Bulldogs chipped away over the next few innings. Samford scored three runs in the third, five more in the fourth and another in the fifth to close the gap to one run, 10-9, after five innings of play. The Bucs received some key defensive plays from outfielders
Jamie Palmese and
JD Yakubinis in those middle innings to keep Samford from adding even more runs.
Gent gave the Bucs some added breathing room with a solo home run in the sixth. Gent, who homered twice in Saturday's game, has now driven in 17 runs for the Bucs in the last nine games. Additionally, he has driven in at least one run in nine consecutive games.
The Bucs would add two more insurance runs in the eighth. Webb got things started with a solo home run before Barth drove in King with a sacrifice fly to make the score 13-9. With his eighth inning home run, Webb has now driven in 100 runs in his ETSU career.
Now with a four-run lead to protect, Kovacs continued to pitch well for ETSU. Kovacs worked around a single and clinched a win for the Bucs with a strikeout. With his outing on Sunday, Kovacs lowered his season ERA to a team-low 2.16.
ETSU will return home on Wednesday to host Radford. First pitch for that contest is set for 5 p.m. from Thomas Stadium.
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