TOLEDO, Ohio (April 25, 2025) –
JD Yakubinis slugged a solo home run in the top of the tenth inning to spark a four-run inning for the ETSU baseball team as the Buccaneers battled back to earn a 8-4 victory in the series opener at Toledo on Friday afternoon. Friday's win boosts ETSU's record to 29-11 on the 2025 campaign.
Most of ETSU's offensive production in Friday's win came from the bottom of its batting order. Eight of ETSU's 11 hits in the game came from the last four spots in the lineup. Yakubinis went 2-for-2 with the go-ahead home run in the tenth, while
Henry Ferguson (2-for-4, two runs scored) and
Jamie Palmese (2-for-3) had multi-hit efforts as well.
Cody Miller (three RBI) and
Axel Melendez (two RBI) drove in five of ETSU's eight runs against the Rockets to round out the offensive leaders for the Bucs.
On the mound, the Bucs used just two pitchers in the extra inning contest. Starter
Carter Fink worked the first 5.2 innings and allowed four runs (zero earned) on eight hits, no walks and four strikeouts. Sophomore
Brady Frederick took the ball the rest of the way for ETSU tossing 4.1 shutout innings with two hits allowed and four strikeouts. Frederick, who retired the first nine Toledo batters he faced, sees his record improve to 5-1 with Friday's victory.
Both teams had opportunities to score early in Friday's contest with two runners reaching base in each of the first three half innings. However, it wasn't until the bottom of the second when the first runs were scored. A pair of Buccaneer errors, a passed ball and a single brought home three for Toledo to give them a 3-0 advantage.
The Bucs would answer back in the fourth.
Cooper Torres got the rally started with a leadoff single and then
Will Smoot reached on a Toledo error. Melendez then drove in both Torres and Smoot with a triple to get the Bucs within a run.
Toledo chose to play the infield in to prevent more runs from scoring, but Ferguson singled up the middle to plate Melendez to knot the score at three. Palmese lined a double to the right field corner to give the Bucs a pair of runners in scoring position with one away. Miller then drove in the go-ahead run with groundout to give the Bucs their first lead of the afternoon, 4-3.
The score became even again in the sixth. Two singles were aided by the third ETSU error of the contest to tie the game at four. ETSU got out of the inning when Yakubinis, who entered the game in the sixth, snuffed out the Rocket rally by throwing out a potential base stealer to keep the score deadlocked at four moving to the seventh.
With the game tied a four, both bullpens turned in some stellar work. The tandem of Jacob Tabor and RJ Shunck for Toledo and Frederick for ETSU each threw three shutout innings to send the series opener to extra innings.
Yakubinis wasted little time in giving the Bucs a jolt of momentum with his leadoff solo homer over the left field wall to make it 5-4 ETSU in the tenth.
The bottom of the Buccaneer lineup continued to get on base with a walk, a hit by pitch and a sacrifice bunt gave the Bucs two runners in scoring position with one out. Miller then smacked a double in the gap to score those two runs before
Blake Jacklin brought Miller home to score with another double to make the score 8-4 ETSU.
In the bottom of the tenth, the Rockets did notch a two-out single but Frederick retired the next hitter to finish off the win for ETSU. With Friday's outing, Frederick lowered his ERA to 2.27 and his batting average against dipped to .182. Both marks lead all SoCon pitchers.
The Bucs will look to earn their tenth consecutive non-conference series win when the series resumes on Saturday afternoon. First pitch for that matchup is set for 1 p.m. on ESPN+.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
