JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 26, 2025) – The ETSU baseball team returned to the win column on Wednesday with a 12-7 victory over Old Dominion at Thomas Stadium. ETSU improves to 19-5 this season with Wednesday's win over the Monarchs.
ETSU's offense totaled 13 hits in Wednesday's win. It is the tenth time this season that the Bucs have had 13 or more hits in a game.
Blake Jacklin led the charge going 3-for-5 with a home run and two RBI.
Jamie Palmese,
Cooper Torres and
Axel Melendez all had two hits as well. Torres homered for the second straight game, which brings his home run total to 11 this season.
Will Smoot smashed his second home run of the season as well in Wednesday's victory.
A total of six different ETSU pitchers saw time on the mound on Wednesday.
Derek McCarley, who picked up the win, started and allowed two runs on one hit in two innings of work.
Andrew Cotten,
Andrew Ronne,
Tate Jones,
Carter Oliff and
Landon Crumbley all pitched in relief of McCarley. Ronne and Crumbley tossed two innings a piece versus the Monarchs. Crumbley logged the only scoreless appearance by a Buccaneer pitcher Wednesday lowering his season ERA to 2.86.
The Buccaneer offense came out swinging against ODU. ETSU's second hitter of the game Jacklin homered to right to give the Blue and Gold an early 1-0 lead. A two-run single by Palmese and an Old Dominion error chased home three more runs for ETSU in the second. ODU got a pair of runs back in the top of the third, but Smoot immediately answered with a two-run home run to make it 6-2 ETSU after three innings.
Old Dominion kept chipping away and got within a run of the Bucs heading to the bottom of the fifth, 6-5. The Buccaneers snuffed out ODU's momentum with their biggest inning of the game. Nine Bucs came to the plate in the fifth and totaled six hits.
Grant Gallagher got things rolling with an RBI single. An ODU double play brought another run across the plate for the Bucs. However, the Bucs had three two-out hits from Melendez, Palmese and Jacklin to push their lead back to six, 11-5, after five.
ODU scored single runs in the sixth and seventh innings off the Buccaneer bullpen. Torres blasted a solo home run to center field in the bottom of the eighth to add some cushion to ETSU's lead before Crumbley closed the game out with his second scoreless inning clinching the 12-7 win for the Bucs.
The Bucs will travel for their first road series of the season this weekend when they visit USC Upstate. The series between ETSU and the Spartans is scheduled to get underway at 5 p.m. on Friday.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
