JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 23, 2025) – The ETSU baseball team saw its six-game winning streak come to an end on Sunday as Samford knocked off the Bucs by a score of 13-7. The loss, which is just the third for ETSU at home this spring moving their record to 17-3 at Thomas Stadium, moves the Bucs' overall record to 18-5 and 2-1 in SoCon action.
ETSU had four players have two hits on Sunday.
Jamie Palmese,
Cody Miller,
JD Yakubinis and
Axel Melendez all tallied multi-hit performances. Miller along with
Cooper Torres and
Tristan Curless also launched home runs to round out the offensive leaders for the Bucs.
Samford scored first on Sunday with a pair of runs in the top of the second. However, the Bucs were quick to answer with five runs in the bottom of the frame. Yakubinis started the rally with an one-out double.
Grant Gallagher was hit by a pitch then Curless hit a long opposite field home run to put the Bucs on top, 3-2. For Curless, it was his fourth home run in the last six games.
ETSU kept the rally going even after Samford turned things over to the bullpen. Palmese delivered an RBI single and Miller tacked on one more run on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2 ETSU after two innings of action.
After being held to just four runs in the first two games of the series, the Bulldog bats continued to put in their best effort of the weekend in the third. A pair of two-run home runs not only gave the lead back to Samford but chased ETSU starter
Michael Harpster from the game.
Samford scored runs off the Buccaneer bullpen in the fifth and sixth to grow its lead to three, 8-5. It looked like the Bucs may have one more comeback attempt in them as back-to-back solo home runs by Miller and Torres got the Bucs within a run, 8-7, heading to the eighth.
Unfortunately, the Bulldogs had more offense in the tank. The Bulldogs slugged three more home runs and added a sacrifice fly late to put the game out of reach for the Bucs and salvage the final game of the weekend series, 13-7.
The Bucs will remain home for their next game, which will be on Wednesday against Old Dominion. First pitch between the Bucs and Monarchs is set for 3 p.m. from Thomas Stadium.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.