GREENVILLE, S.C. (May 23, 2025) – There was no shortage of offense or excitement in the ETSU baseball team's first game of the SoCon Tournament on Friday morning against Western Carolina. The top-seeded Buccaneers outlasted fifth-seeded Catamounts by a score of 16-13 to advance in the winner's side of the bracket. Friday's victory is ETSU's 39th of the season to improve its record to 39-15 on the season. The 39 victories are tied for the second-most in school history with the 1980 team. Only the 1981 Buccaneer team (44 wins) has won more games than this 2025 squad.
The 16 runs scored by ETSU on Friday was its most in a SoCon Tournament game since 1992 when it scored 20 in a 20-3 victory over VMI. Four Bucs had multi-hit efforts in the win and five drove in two or more runs. The difference in the game, however, was ETSU's ability to cash in on the walks and hit batters by WCU's pitching staff. Nine of ETSU's 16 runs came from players that reached via a walk or were hit by a pitch.
Cody Miller slugged ETSU's lone home run of the contest and went 2-for-4 with a double, three runs scored and a pair of stolen bases. The two steals bring Miller's season total to 25 and he becomes the first Buc to steal 25 or more bases in a season since 2006. Following Miller, Blake Jacklin and Cooper Torres both had two hits and drove in two and three runs, respectively. Grant Gallagher also knocked in three runs with a double and JD Yakubinis provided a spark at the bottom of ETSU's lineup going 3-for-5 with three RBI and three runs scored from the ninth spot in the order.
ETSU got on the board first without a hit in the bottom half of the opening inning. Miller led the game off by getting hit by a pitch. The junior shortstop then stole second and third base to give the Bucs a golden scoring chance. Torres knocked in Miller with a sacrifice fly to give ETSU the early 1-0 lead.
Miller provided more offense for the Bucs in the bottom half of the third as he blasted a 412-foot solo home run to left center to make the score 2-0 ETSU. After being held to one hit in the first three innings, the Catamount offense started to get things going in the fourth against ETSU starter Carter Fink. A leadoff single was followed by a two-run home run to pull Western Carolina even with the Bucs, 2-2.
With some momentum, the Catamounts continued to add on in the fifth. WCU used four hits and were aided by a pair of ETSU errors to score six runs and gain its first lead of the game, 8-2, forcing the Bucs to make a move to the bullpen. Suddenly facing a sizable deficit, the Bucs did not panic. The first three ETSU hitters of the inning reached base with a hit. Torres was then hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to make it an 8-3 game. Following a strikeout, the Catamounts looked like they may get out of the inning without any further damage but a high fly ball hit by Gallagher was lost by the Catamount defense. That miscue brought three more runs in to score and made it an 8-6 game. The ETSU rally was not done there as back-to-back doubles from Jamie Palmese and Axel Melendez knotted the score at 8-8 after five innings of play.
As play moved to the sixth, the Bucs turned the ball over to Frederick. Another two-run home run by Western Carolina put the Catamounts back on top, 10-8. Finding itself down again, ETSU showed incredible patience drawing three consecutive walks with one out in the seventh. A two-run single by Yakubinis tied the score at 10 before a big RBI double by Miller and a sacrifice fly by Jacklin grew ETSU's advantage to two, 12-10, heading to the eighth.
The back-and-forth battle continued in the eighth. A single and a hit batter by Frederick led into a pair of run-scoring doubles by Western Carolina to again shift the lead back to WCU, 13-12. The Buccaneer offense had one more surge in it as it started the eighth with back-to-back walks. Following a Catamount pitching change, the four of the next five Bucs singled to rally past WCU yet again, 16-13.
Frederick began the ninth inning, but Andrew Ronne came in with the tying run coming to the plate and two outs. Ronne walked the first batter he faced but bounced back to strike out the next to seal the wild win for the Bucs. Frederick was awarded the win to boost his record to 8-1, while Ronne collected his third save of his senior campaign.
With today's win, the Bucs advance to Saturday where they will take on either No. 2 Samford or No. 7 Wofford. First pitch for that matchup is set for Noon.
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