Over the weekend, the Bucs headed to take on UNCG who remain near the top of the SoCon rankings in second place after the weekend.
The three-game series was played Friday and Saturday with a double-header that final day.
The first game on Friday was all ETSU until the bottom of the eighth inning, and home runs would be the name of the game for both teams. The Bucs were up by one run on the Spartans, 4-3, all of the Buccaneer runs coming from homers by Ben Jackson (Guyton, Georgia), Caleb Longley (Cleveland, Tennessee) and Jackson Greer (Kingsport, Tennessee).
However, in the bottom of the eighth, UNCG would return with a homer to take the lead and leave the Bucs no time to come back.
In the double-header on Saturday, the Bucs took the first game 8-5 but fell the last game 12-3.
Senior pitcher Ryan Simpler (Lewes, Delaware) brought the Bucs that first victory on the mound allowing no walks and striking out 10 hitters.
Longley continued his hitting success from game one, and the Spartans near the end looked like they could come back to take the lead, but senior pitcher Aaron Maher (Brentwood, Tennessee) came into the game to save the lead.
The second game on Saturday did not prove to be salvageable. The Spartans pulled ahead of the Bucs early in the game and they could not rally back from that deficit.
Moving forward into the season, the Bucs have only a few more SoCon series to play before the end of regular play.
They take on Tulane in an out-of-conference series this weekend, but will be back on April 27 to take on SoCon opponent Western Carolina.
