GREENVILLE, S.C. (May 24, 2025) – The top-seeded ETSU baseball team kept things rolling at the SoCon Tournament as it downed second-seeded Samford by a score of 14-8 on Saturday afternoon from Fluor Field. The win is ETSU's 40
th of the season and improves its overall record to 40-15. It is just the second time in program history that the Bucs have won 40 or more games in a season with the other being the 1981 Bucs with 44 victories. Furthermore, Saturday's win propels ETSU to the final day of the SoCon Tournament for the first time ever and the Bucs will play for the conference's automatic bid on Sunday afternoon.
Six of ETSU's 10 hits came from three players in Saturday's victory. The SoCon Freshman of the Year
Axel Melendez was one of those players going 2-for-5 with a home run and a career-high five RBI.
Cooper Torres, the SoCon Player of the Year, also collected two hits in a 2-for-3 effort at the plate with three runs scored, two walks, two RBI and a home run. The long ball by Torres was his 23
rd of the 2025 campaign moving him into a tie with
Cameron Sisneros (2024) for the second-most homers in a single season by a Buc.
Cody Miller tallied two hits as well and reached 200 career hits in an ETSU uniform.
Tristan Curless hit a three-run home run, and the duo of
Grant Gallagher and
Jamie Palmese also drove in runs. The first six hitters in ETSU's batting order all scored two runs or more on the day.
ETSU and Samford wasted little time getting into the run column on Saturday. The Bulldogs began the contest by scoring three runs off ETSU starter
Michael Harpster. As they did multiple times in Friday's win over Western Carolina, the Bucs answered. Miller started the frame with a leadoff single. A hit batter and three consecutive walks followed with the third coming from Gallagher to force in the first ETSU run of the day. A Bulldog error chased home the second run of the frame before Melendez delivered a two-run single to give the Bucs their first lead of the afternoon. Another run came in to score on an RBI groundout by
Henry Ferguson and ETSU held a 5-3 lead after one inning of action.
Both starters seemed to settle in after rocky first innings. Harpster hit three batters in the top of the fourth that led into a two-run single to knot the game at 5-5. But just like in the first, the ETSU offense was quick to respond. Three consecutive singles by Miller,
Blake Jacklin and Torres gave the Bucs the lead back, 6-5. With a pair of runners on base, Curless hammered a pitch into the bullpen to make it 9-5 Bucs.
The Bucs did not stop there, however, as Gallagher worked another walk and Palmese singled ahead of Melendez. The freshman from Puerto Rico slammed a three-run home run of his own to grow ETSU's lead to 12-5.
ETSU then tacked on an unearned run in the fifth to grow its lead to eight, 13-5 after five innings of action.
Samford got two runs back in the seventh, but the Bucs got one of those back thanks to the solo home run by Torres in the bottom half. As mentioned earlier, it was Torres' 23
rd home run of the season. Only Paul Hoilman's 25 home runs in 2010 rank higher among ETSU sluggers than this campaign put together by Torres.
Following the departure of Harpster entering the sixth inning, the trio of
Derek McCarley,
Andrew Cotten and
Colin Eaton kept Samford from mounting much of a comeback out of the Buccaneer bullpen. Harpster, who improved to 7-3 on the season with Saturday's win, allowed five runs on five hits in five innings of work to go with seven strikeouts on the day.
Saturday's win propels ETSU to Championship Sunday in the SoCon Tournament for the first time in program history. The Bucs, who could have a rematch against Samford or face The Citadel or Mercer tomorrow afternoon, needs just one more win to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013 and for the fifth time overall. First pitch for Sunday's game is set for Noon from Fluor Field.
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