JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (May 14, 2026) – The ETSU baseball team rallied from an early 5-0 deficit against Mercer to tie the score at 7-7 on Thursday night from Thomas Stadium. However, the Bears scored the final two runs of the contest to finish off a 9-7 victory. With Thursday's loss, the Buccaneers move to 30-20 overall and 10-9 in SoCon play.
The Buccaneer offense finished with 10 hits in the contest.
Nate Conner led the charge with a 3-for-5 day at the plate with a home run and four RBI.
Jamie Palmese had the other multi-hit effort for ETSU finishing 2-for-5 with a run scored.
Ian Guanzon drove in two runs and
Henry Ferguson knocked in the seventh run for the Bucs.
Six different pitchers saw action for ETSU on Thursday.
Logan Grass made his second start of the season and allowed eight runs (seven earned) on nine hits with a pair of strikeouts. The Buccaneer bullpen fared well as five relievers combined for the final 4.1 innings and allowed one run on two hits to go with seven strikeouts.
As mentioned earlier, the Bears jumped on the Bucs with the first five runs on Thursday's matchup. Conner got the Bucs on the board with a two-run home run in the third. With that long ball, Conner took over the team-lead with 15 home runs.
Mercer immediately got those two runs back in the top of the fourth to make the score 7-2. However, the Bucs' biggest inning came in the bottom half of that inning.
Tristan Curless, Palmese, and
Axel Melendez all reached on singles to begin the frame. Guanzon knocked in two runs with a single to close the gap to three, 7-4. Conner singled home two more runs and Ferguson capped the five-run inning with an RBI single of his own to pull the Bucs back even.
The Bears scored their eighth run in the fifth and then added their ninth in the eighth. ETSU had its chances to tie the game with runners reaching scoring position in the fifth, sixth, and seventh. Mercer's bullpen duo of Reid Fagerstrom and Jess Ackerman kept the Bucs off the scoreboard for the remainder of the contest. These two pitchers combined to strike out 13 ETSU hitters over the final 5.1 innings to finish off the Bears' 41
st win of the season.
The Bucs and Bears will resume their series on Friday. First pitch for game two is set for 2 p.m. from Thomas Stadium.
For more information on Buccaneer baseball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the baseball tab.
