HARRISONBURG, Va. (March 8, 2026) – The ETSU baseball team returned to the win column on Sunday with a 13-0 victory over James Madison. The win, which was in eight innings, boosts ETSU's overall record to 10-5 on the season.
Every player in ETSU's starting lineup reached base at least once and eight of the nine players picked up hits in the win. The left side of the Buccaneer infield
Matt Evans and
Henry Ferguson both had three-hit performances, while
Jamie Palmese and
Nate Conner had two hits a piece.
Tyler Fetterman drove in three runs, while the tandem of Conner and
Luke Matlock launched home runs for ETSU in the win.
ETSU compiled its second shutout of the 2026 season thanks to the work of four pitchers.
Cooper Jones made his first career start and shined throwing 4.1 shutout innings with four strikeouts.
Andrew Cotten logged 2.1 shutout frames of his own and was the winning pitcher on Sunday improving his record to 3-0.
Thomas Costarelli and Evan Rollison wrapped up the shutout for the Bucs with scoreless outings as well.
Sunday's series finale began as a pitchers' duel between ETSU's Jones and JMU's Tyler Lutz. Neither pitcher allowed a run until the fifth inning. That run came from the Bucs as Matlock squared up his first home run in ETSU uniform to give his squad a 1-0 lead.
Jones and Cotten threw up a zero in the bottom of the fifth leading into ETSU breaking the game open in the sixth. With two outs in the inning, Fetterman drew a bases loaded walk and Matlock scored on a wild pitch to grow ETSU's advantage to three. Evans came through with a two-run double and Conner smashed a two-run home run to put the Blue and Gold up by seven. Yet another bases-loaded walk, this one by
Axel Melendez, closed the big inning for the Bucs with them up by eight.
JMU was threatening to take a bite out of the ETSU lead with the bases loaded in the seventh but a key strikeout by Costarelli got the Bucs out of the jam still up by eight. The following half inning saw the Bucs put the game out of reach. Two more walks with the bases loaded from Matlock and Palmese made ETSU's lead double figures. A two-run single by Fetterman was followed by an RBI single from Evans to cap the scoring from ETSU. Overall, 12 of ETSU's 13 runs on the day were scored with two outs.
ETSU will return home to Johnson City for a four-game series against Bradley next weekend. The four-game set between the Bucs and Braves is set to get underway at 3 p.m. on Friday from Thomas Stadium.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
