JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 7, 2025) – In its longest game of the 2025 season, the ETSU baseball team fell to Pittsburgh by a score of 7-4 in 12 innings on Friday afternoon at Thomas Stadium. Friday's loss moves ETSU's record to 10-3 this spring.
For the ninth time in 13 games, the Buccaneers totaled 10 hits or more on Friday.
Lenny Montesano continues his stellar start to his first season as a Buc going 3-for-5 with a RBI.
JD Yakubinis and
Will Smoot also had two-hit outings against the Panthers to help lead the ETSU offense.
Even in the 12-inning contest, the Bucs used just four pitchers on Friday.
Carter Fink made the start and pitched the first 3.1 innings. Fink allowed three runs on six hits to go with two strikeouts.
Brady Frederick posted the best outing on the mound for the Bucs tossing 4.1 shutout innings with three strikeouts. At one point Frederick retired 13 consecutive hitters. With his outing on Friday, Frederick's ERA in 2025 was lowered to 0.77.
The Buccaneers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning on Friday. Smoot drove in ETSU's first run with a single before
Axel Melendez knocked in the team's second run with a groundout. Pittsburgh promptly answered with two runs of their own in the third. The back-and-forth continued in the bottom half of the third with a RBI single from Montesano to give ETSU the lead back, 3-2.
Pittsburgh tied the game again at 4-4 with a home run by Ryan Zuckerman in the fourth. The next run came across in the bottom of the sixth. A single and a pair of walks gave ETSU a bases-loaded chance with one out.
Cody Miller narrowly missed a grand slam, but he did knock in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-3 ETSU.
The Panthers mounted a rally in the top of the ninth thanks to an one-out walk followed quickly by a double down the line. The first couple of extra innings did not generate many scoring chances. Pittsburgh worked a pair of walks in the 12
th and then Zuckerman connected for his second home run of the game to give the Panthers their first lead of the day, 7-4.
Suddenly trailing by three, the Bucs did get the tying run to the plate with one out. However, the Panthers brought in Ethan Firoved to get out of the jam. Firoved retired the next two ETSU batters to clinch the win for Pittsburgh and pick up his fourth save of the season.
The series between the Buccaneers and Panthers will resume on Saturday. First pitch for game two is set for 2 p.m.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
