JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Old Dominion Baseball could not keep up with the ETSU offense as the Monarchs dropped their midweek game, 12-7 on Wednesday afternoon at Thomas Stadium.
The Buccaneers (19-5) took an early 1-0 lead on a Blake Jacklin solo home run in the bottom of the first. The home team then tacked on three more runs in the second. With two outs and the bases loaded, Jamie Palmese poked a ball through the left side of the ODU defense to make it 3-0. Jacklin then reloaded the bases with a bunt single, and a fielding error by Kyle Edwards allowed another runner to come home.
Evan Holman countered with a leadoff home run in the third inning. Ryan Thomas then drew a four-pitch walk, moved up to third on a Tahraun Hammond base hit through the left side, and crossed the plate as ETSU turned a 6-4-3 double play. However, the Bucs jumped ahead 6-2 in the bottom of the inning on a two-run homer by Will Smoot.
The Monarchs (7-15) cut the deficit to 6-4 in the fourth as Tanner Schaedel drew a leadoff walk and Tyler Zedalis smacked a 1-0 pitch to the left of the batter’s eye for his third long ball of the season. Then in the fifth, ODU was back within a run at 6-5 as Edwards walked, stole second, took third on a wild pitch, and ran home on a Zach Leite ground out to third base.
But just when the Monarchs had the Bucs in their sights, the hosts put up another five runs on six hits in the home half of the fifth inning. Zedalis scored on a Hammond double in the sixth and Leite came around on a Kainen Jorge triple in the seventh, but ODU couldn’t catch ETSU. The Bucs rounded out the scoring in the eighth as Cooper Torres hit a one-out solo home run.
Jayce Park (0-2) made his first career start and allowed the one run in one complete inning pitched. A staff day for ODU, the team used a total of 10 pitchers.
Zedalis (2-for-4) homered, drove in two runs, and scored twice. Hammond (2-for-5) contributed the RBI double, Holman (1-for-3) hit his first home run as a Monarch, Jorge (1-for-2) had an RBI triple, and Leite (1-for-4) finished with one run, one RBI and a walk.
The Monarchs open up a Sun Belt series at App State this Friday at 6 p.m. The teams will then play at 3 p.m. on Saturday and at 1 p.m. on Sunday.