The first inning in the ETSU vs. Tennessee game Tuesday night was like the calm before the storm at Cardinal Park. The Bucs held Tennessee scoreless in the inning and then the flood gates opened as the Vols drowned ETSU with eight runs in the second inning on their way to a 20-2 drumming of the Bucs. A loud crowd of over 1,000 people witnessed this hitting exhibition that in-cluded a season high 25 hits and a school record 10 doubles for the 12th- ranked Volunteers. The Tennes-see pitching staff looked Omaha worthy as they only gave up two runs and struck out 13 Buccaneer batters on the night.
ETSU began to score runs in the third when shortstop Andy Howdeshell drove in sophomore Matt Traylor with a double and Howdeshell scored on a sacrifice fly by Josiah Glafenhein. Those were all the runs the Bucs got on Tuesday and the crowd would watch as the Vols would score 10 more in the next six innings. Despite the lack of offense for the Bucs, Traylor, a Knoxville native, went 2-3 with two doubles and a run scored.
Tennessee’s offensive fire power was just too much for the Bucs to handle on this night.
“They just put it to us tonight, there is no other way to describe it,” said Skole. “They are a very good offensive team, they got it going and they got contagious, and we couldn’t stop them.”
The Vols improved to 20-3 on the year, and the Buccaneers fell to 13-15.
ETSU will return to Southern Con-ference play this weekend as they travel to Elon. The Bucs are 3-6 in the conference and with a good showing at Elon, they could get back to .500 in the conference.
“Now we must get ready for this weekend because we have a huge series with Elon, and we’ve got to win,” Skole said. “We got have it to stay in the race. That’s our goal.”
ETSU travels to Elon on Friday for a three-game series, and then face UNC-Asheville on the road Mar. 31. The Bucs will not be back at Cardinal Park until Apr. 2 when they face Western Carolina at 7 p.m.

Author