OXFORD, Ohio (May 15, 2024) – The ETSU baseball team will wrap up its regular season this week with a three-game road series at Miami (OH). The series, which will run from Thursday through Saturday, will not be streamed but live stats are available for following on etsubucs.com. The series is set to get underway on Thursday at 4 p.m.
Last Time Out – The Bucs dropped a
18-14 decision in 10 innings on the road at Wofford on Sunday. Sunday's loss moves ETSU to 32-17 overall and closes its conference record at 13-8.
Sisneros with a Sensational Week/Season – ETSU first baseman
Cameron Sisneros had a sensational week for the Bucs. In four games, Sisneros hit .471 with four home runs and 14 RBI. For his efforts, Sisneros was named the
SoCon Player of the Week on Monday. Sisneros has been one of ETSU's top hitters all season long and has put together one of the best offensive seasons in ETSU history. Sisneros and his 21 home runs are tied for the third-most in school history, while his 78 RBI are the second-most. Sisneros needs five home runs to break the single-season home run record (25 – Paul Hoilman – 2010) and seven RBI to break the RBI record (84 – Paul Hoilman – 2010).
Bucs on Base – With three games remaining in the regular season plus the SoCon Tournament, the Bucs currently have a team on-base percentage of .422. If the Bucs can improve upon or keep getting on base at that rate for the rest of the season, it'll surpass the previous school record for team on-base percentage in a single season (.418 – 1997). A key reason for this is ETSU's ability to draw walks. The 2024 Bucs have already drawn more walks (270) than any other team in school history passing the previous record of 263 from the 1981 squad.
Winning Ways – With 32 wins in 2024, the Bucs are nearing one of the best seasons in the program's history in terms of wins. With two more victories, ETSU will match the 2019 team's 34 wins that are tied for the fourth-most ever by a Buccaneer baseball team. Should the Bucs sweep the Redhawks this week, only the 1981 (44 wins), 1980 (39 wins), 2013 (36 wins) and 2011 (36) teams would have won more games than this year's team.
League Leader in K's – ETSU's pitching staff enters the final week of the regular season leading the SoCon in strikeouts per nine innings pitched (8.7). A pair of freshmen lead the charge for strikeouts this spring for the Bucs in
Jace Hyde (74 K's in 62 IP) and
Michael Harpster (58 K's in 62.1 IP).
SoCon Tournament Next Week – ETSU will have to wait and see what seed it will be for the SoCon Tournament next week in Greenville, S.C. The Bucs could be the third, four or five seed for the Tournament depending upon the results from around the league this weekend. For more information on the SoCon Tournament, click
HERE.
About Miami – The Redhawks enters the final week of the regular season with a 25-23 overall record and a 17-13 mark in conference play. A couple players to watch for Miami are Zach MacDonald and Peyton Olejnik. MacDonald paces the Redhawks in batting average (.362), slugging percentage (.751), runs scored (63), hits (67), home runs (20) and stolen bases (14). Olejnik, meanwhile, paces Miami's pitching staff with seven wins on the season and is averaging better than a strikeout per inning pitched (71 Ks in 56.1 IP).
Series History vs. Miami (OH) – ETSU and Miami have clashed nine times previously with the Bucs winning five of those contests. This series will mark the first time these two programs have matched up since 2017 when they played a three-game set in Oxford. In 2017, the Bucs took two of three from the Redhawks. Overall, ETSU is 5-1 in the last six games in the series.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
