University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
East Tennessee State
Towles Belts Two Homers as Bulldogs Down ETSU
04.07.2015 | Baseball
JOHNSON CITY, TN – The UNC Asheville baseball team stayed perfect in midweek contests this season with their Tuesday night 6-3 victory over East Tennessee State.
The Bulldogs (16-17) improved to 9-0 in midweek games, while moving to 13-1 on the year when leading after six innings.
On Tuesday night, Asheville jumped out in front with two first inning runs, later adding single runs in the fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth frames. ETSU (12-19) scored a single run in the second inning and posted two runs in the bottom of the eighth to make things interesting, but Bulldog closer Nick Schavone came on to strike out Jeremy Taylor and leave the bases loaded to end the frame.
Overall, Bulldog pitchers left 11 total Buccaneer runners stranded on the basepaths throughout the night.
Kyle Towles opened and closed the night's scoring with a pair of solo home runs to pace the Asheville offense, while Joe Zayatz also collected two hits. Tommy Houmard notched a hit to extend his current on-base streak to 21 games in the win.
Starter Spencer Orr tossed the first four innings of the night, allowing three hits and one run while striking out two ETSU hitters. Evan Joura (1-1) earned his first win of the year with his one inning of relief before the Bulldogs used the quartet of Adam Spracklin, Ryan Tapp, Zach Wiseman and Nick Boyles to get through the next three innings before Schavone came on and eliminated the ETSU rally in the last of the eighth.
Schavone sat the hosts down in order in the ninth frame to notch his seventh save of the season.
The Bulldogs opened the scoring in the first inning with Towles' solo homer to left field before Michael Kelly drew a bases loaded walk later in the frame.
ETSU pulled within one in the bottom of the second inning with a sacrifice fly RBI, but Asheville responded to score the game's next three runs via Ben Bailiff's RBI double in the fourth, Hunter Bryant's solo home run to right field in the fifth and Houmard's RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Buccaneers plated their two runs via back-to-back hit batters with the bases loaded before Schavone came on and extinguished the chance to add any more runs.
The Bulldogs added one final insurance run on Towles' second solo homer of the night to wrap things up.
Asheville returns home to Greenwood Field tomorrow night for a 6 p.m. contest against Wofford College.
