The ETSU baseball team opened its season with a three-game set against Bowling Green State University that ended in a two-game set due to rain on Sunday. The Bucs were able to tie as they fell short on Friday and got their revenge on Saturday.
In the season opener on Friday afternoon, ETSU let Bowling Green come back. The game was pretty quiet for the first four innings until a RBI from Kevin Phillips (St. Louis, Mo.) put the Bucs ahead 1-0.
It wasn’t until the final two innings when things began to get out of hand for the Bucs.
Bowling Green scored twice in the fifth inning from a single down center field from Justin Mott, sending teammates Hunter Clanin and Nick Glanzman home and gaining their first lead of the game, 2-1.
In the eighth and ninth inning, Bowling Green scored five runs compared to ETSU’s zero.
Glanzman singled right and Smith was able to make it home, changing the score to 3-1. Shortly after Cam Daugherty cleared the field with a double, teammates Clanin, Glanzman and Randy Righter all scored.
The lead was 6-1 at the end of the eighth inning.
In the final inning, a score by Kory Brown sealed the deal for Bowling Green, and it came out on top, 7-1.
On Saturday afternoon, the Bucs came onto the field ready to go at it. The Bucs were down 0-1 to Bowling Green, and they knew they had to make this one count.
Phillips came out ready to help his team prove it. The massive scoring by the Bucs started in the third inning when Phillips hit a homerun to left field that would hit the scoreboard sending himself, Trey York (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Jeremy Taylor (Fayetteville, Ga.) all in to score.
Despite the Bucs not able to score in the final three innings, in the fourth through the sixth inning, the Bucs scored nine runs.
Bowling Green was only able to score once in the final inning, resulting in a 12-1 loss.
“We came out and played with a chip on our shoulders,” said Aaron Maher (Brentwood, Tenn.), who had a two-run homer and finished the game with 3 RBIs, a run scored and a walk. “There were a lot of emotions yesterday, but I think the emotions today may have been stronger just because of that chip on our shoulder. We knew we had to get the win and offense exploded along with great pitching.”
Pitcher Victor Gonzalez (Mount Pleasant, S.C.) finished with only three hits allowed.
Because of the last game getting rained out, the Bucs will be hitting the road for their next matchup to take on Virginia Tech on Tuesday.
