Baylor Baseball Sweeps ETSU After 7-4 Sunday Win

Sun Apr 3 17:30:15 CDT 2022

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – April 3, 2022

Baylor BSB Sweeps ETSU After 7-4 Sunday Win
Rigney sets career highs with six innings pitched and eight strikeouts
For more information contact: Max Calderone, 254-265-1639, Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu<mailto:Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu>

THE RUNDOWN
WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball (16-11) finished off a series sweep of East Tennessee State (17-8) with a 7-4 victory on Sunday at Baylor Ballpark in Waco.

Will Rigney (2-0) gave the Bears six strong innings of work with eight strikeouts, both career highs, while allowing just two runs on six hits. A four-run third inning propelled the offense to its fifth-straight win.

For the third consecutive day, ETSU scored in the top of the first, this time on a solo home run. But BU would answer right back, scoring two in the bottom half thanks to a Kyle Nevin two-run single that made it 2-1.

In the third, four Baylor hits resulted in four runs including a Chase Wehsener RBI single, a Casen Neumann run-scoring ground-rule double, and a two-run knock by Harrison Caley which extended the lead to 6-1. On the mound, Rigney struck out the side in the fourth and limited damage in the fifth to just one run allowed which cut the lead to 6-2.

After ETSU scratched one across in the seventh, BU responded with a tally of its own in the eighth off an Antonio Valdez RBI triple that made it 7-3. A ninth-inning solo home run by the Buccaneers pushed the total to 7-4, but Mason Marriott was able to see things out for his fifth save of the year.

NOTES
• The win marks Baylor’s first series sweep of 2022, and first since April 1-3, 2021 when the Bears took all four against North Carolina A&T.
• BU’s most recent three-game sweep came on March 12-14, 2021 against Xavier.
• Baylor is now 83-33 (.716) at home over the past five seasons, including an 11-7 mark in 2022.
• BU improved to 5-0 all-time against ETSU and 7-0 all-time against SoCon opponents.
• The Bears struck out 10 batters, eclipsing double-digit K’s for the eighth time this season.
• Will Rigney logged a career-high eight punchouts and went a career-long six innings.
• Mason Marriott recorded his fifth save of the season.
• Kyle Nevin notched his ninth multi-RBI game of the season with two.
• Harrison Caley picked up two hits and two RBIs for his sixth and third such games of the year.
• Casen Neumann drove in a run for the seventh-straight game, and eighth time in his last nine appearances.
• Tre Richardson (18), Jared McKenzie (13), Jack Pineda (10), Chase Wehsener (10), Esteban Cardoza-Oquendo (7) and Nevin (7) each extended their on-base streaks.

STAT OF THE GAME
8 – Will Rigney struck out a career-high eight batters in the winning effort.

TOP QUOTES
Head coach Steve Rodriguez
On sweeping the series…
“I think it’s huge, especially against a quality team like ETSU. It’s not like it was a push-over team that gave us a bunch of walks and errors. I think our guys did a really good job of competing against a really good program. So now, every one of our weekends this year has been against a really good team. We’re going to go back into conference knowing that. Our guys are pretty comfortable with it now.”

On the fan support at Baylor Ballpark…
“I can’t thank everybody enough for coming out and supporting this group. They’ve done a great job. We’ve been playing hard against some really great competition and getting big crowds here, having fans cheering us on, it does help. That means a lot to our players, they love seeing that. The more people that come out, it just gives them an extra boost and gets us a series sweep.”

Sophomore RHP Will Rigney
On sweeping the series…
“Sweeps are always good. I don’t want to drop one. Being the 65th team [last year], every single game matters. I just appreciate my teammates and the hitters. They’ve put up a lot of runs on Sunday’s it seems like, so it makes it a little easier for me.”

Sophomore C Harrison Caley
On what’s been working at the plate…
“Honestly, I’ve had a really good two-strike approach, and you know, if I get behind in the count it’s more of a comfort for me and I can get good at driving the ball either way.

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (16-11) heads north to face Dallas Baptist (17-10) on Tuesday, April 5, at Horner Ballpark in Dallas. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. CT.

For the latest news on the Baylor baseball team all season long, follow its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts: @BaylorBaseball.

-BaylorBears.com-

__________________________________

Max Calderone | Associate Director of Athletics Communications (BSB, FB, EQ)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 254-265-1639

[signature_158058250]<http://baylorbears.com/>

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