For the Appalachian State baseball team, offense was not a problem in Johnson City against East Tennessee State over Easter Break.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a problem for the Buccaneers either.  

ETSU defeated ASU  23-17,  9-5 on Saturday and 9-8 on Sunday.  

East Tennessee State belted in 41 runs and banged out 51 hits in the three games.  

Appalachian’s offensive numbers weren’t all that bad, however.  

In the three-game stand in Johnson City, the Mountaineers piled up 38 hits and added 32 runs, usually enough offense to compete in any three-game stretch.     

Sunday’s game proved to be the most competitive out of the three-game set.  Appalachian looked as if they were going to take home at least one of the wins with a 6-0 lead in the third inning.

The scoring streak started when Shane Sigmon sacrifice flied to bring Wes Timmons home for the score.  Michael Lee capped the scoring for the inning with a three-run triple.   

Buccaneer pitcher Raymond McBride gave up three hits, walked two batters and hit another in the inning.     

Powered by a three-run homer by Brandon Eierman in the fourth inning, ETSU answered the imposing lead with eight runs in the inning.   
The Bucs added to the lead with another run in the fifth stanza to make the score 9-6.  

ASU tallied a run in the sixth and seventh innings, but were unable to finish the comeback and fell a run short.  

Andy Cheek took the loss, allowing seven earned runs in seven innings of play. 

In the first game on Saturday, Appalachian fell behind 2-0 in the first inning and played catch-up the rest of the game.  

The Mountaineers were able to even things out in the top of the third inning when the score was tied at four, but the Bucaneers belted in six more runs to take a 10-4 lead.  

Appalachian answered with a three-run inning of their own to draw within three runs of ETSU, 10-7, but were answered soundly again with a nine-run spurt by the Bucs in the fourth inning.    

The only statistic that proved to be in favor of ASU by the game’s end was the error count.  East Tennessee State finished the game with five errors, and Appalachian finished with four.  Cheek, Lee and Huffstettler each had a homerun in the game.  

Jason Howell picked up the loss for the Mountaineers, and Michael Harrell was the winning pitcher for East Tennessee State.  

The second game was a defensive struggle in comparison with the first game.  The result was the same, however, with ETSU picking up the 9-5 win.   

Appalachian jumped out of the gate early with a 4-1 lead in the second inning, but couldn’t slow ETSU down enough to pick up the win. East 
Tennessee State made up the difference in the third inning with four runs and pulled ahead with three runs in the fourth inning.   

Chris Behne and Luke Little both homered in the affair for the Mountaineers.  Ryan Haley allowed eight earned runs en route to the loss.  

Appalachian will next take the field in Boone with a three-game stand against Furman.  A double header will begin on Saturday with a noon start, and the third game on Sunday will start at 1 p.m.