NASHVILLE, Tenn. (May 31, 2025) – The ETSU baseball team saw its historic 2025 season come to an end on Saturday as it fell in an elimination game to Wright State by a score of 7-5 at the Nashville Regional. Saturday's loss closes out the 2025 campaign for ETSU baseball with a 41-17 record, which is the second-most wins in the history of the program (1981 – 44 wins).
The Bucs tripled their hit total from Friday's game against Louisville on Saturday.
Cody Miller,
Jamie Palmese and
JD Yakubinis all hit home runs for the Bucs. Miller and Yakubinis finished the day with two hits each as did
Axel Melendez. With the three long balls by the Bucs, ETSU finishes the season with 121 home runs. That not only shattered the previous school record of 93 in 2010 but also ranks third all-time by a SoCon team trailing only 2009 Elon (138 HRs) and 2008 College of Charleston (130 HRs).
On the mound, the Bucs used three pitchers against Wright State.
Michael Harpster started the game and allowed four runs in 1.1 innings pitched.
Brady Frederick pitched most of the game for the Bucs. Frederick threw a career-high 6.2 innings with three runs allowed on six hits to go with six strikeouts. Senior
Andrew Ronne threw a shutout inning in the ninth with a strikeout in his potential final outing in an ETSU uniform.
After setting the first two batters down in the first inning, Harpster allowed a solo home run to Wright State's Gus Gregory to stake the Raiders to an early 1-0 lead. Wright State doubled its lead with another solo homer this one off the bat of Boston Smith. A single and a walk led into a two-run double from Will Cook to make the score 4-0 Raiders.
It looked like the Bucs were going to get on the board in the third. A single from
Henry Ferguson and a double from Yakubinis gave the Bucs a pair of runners in scoring position with one out. Miller hit a fly ball to right field, which was caught for an out, but Ferguson was thrown out at the plate after tagging up to keep the score at 4-0 Wright State.
ETSU cut into the Raider lead in the fourth.
Tristan Curless got the rally started with a single and then
Grant Gallagher walked. Palmese then came up and slammed a pitch over the left field wall for a three-run home run to make it a 4-3 game. For Palmese, it was his 17
th home run of the 2025 campaign.
The Buccaneer rally continued in the fifth. Yakubinis and Miller slugged back-to-back solo home runs to give ETSU its first lead of the afternoon, 5-4.
After entering the game in the bottom of the second, Frederick held the Raider offense in check with four straight scoreless innings. Wright State finally got a run off ETSU's reliever in the seventh with a solo home run by Patrick Fultz to bring the Raiders back even, 5-5.
Like the Bucs did in the middle innings, the Raiders continued the momentum from its run in the seventh into the eighth. A single with one out was followed by a two-run home run off the bat of Luke Arnold to put Wright State back out in front, 7-5.
With six outs to go, the Raiders continued to ride reliever Chet Lax. Lax, who entered the game in the seventh inning with a runner on third, threw 2.2 perfect innings to send the Raiders to Sunday against either Louisville or a rematch with Vanderbilt.
The 2025 Bucs racked up the second-most wins in school history (41), hit the most home runs ever by an ETSU team (121), had 12 All-SoCon selections, won both the SoCon Regular Season and Tournament Championships and secured a win over then-No. 1 Tennessee in mid-March among other accomplishments. This season will be remembered for a long time in Johnson City and surrounding area as a banner year for Buccaneer baseball.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
