Statesboro, Ga. --- The Georgia Southern baseball team (2-0, 0-0 SBC) defeated the Western Carolina Catamounts (0-2, 0-0 SoCon) 5-0 to take the opening series of 2025 on a cloudy Saturday afternoon (February 15th).
Western Carolina started out the ball game with a single that went right back where it came from off the bat off leadoff and starting pitcher Mason Holton on the very first pitch of the afternoon, but no damage was done as three straight fly-outs ended the inning. In the bottom of the second with two outs, walks by Kaiser and Lovett made way for
Cade Parker to drill an 0-1 pitch deep down the right field line to give the Eagles the early 3-0 lead and touch home for his 100th career run.
The Western Carolina offense all afternoon sputtered on the base pads as well as inopportune hitting such as in the fourth inning. After a Hayden Friese single up the middle, Trent Turner grounded into the first of three double plays turned by the Eagles' defense to clear the runners. The following batter saw Cole Jones get hit by a pitch before he was picked off by the crafty left-handed starter for Georgia Southern in
Jacob Phillips.
Phillips threw a scoreless 5.2 innings, only giving up four hits and striking out two. The senior also picked off two Catamounts to get his team out of a few jams. Another returning Eagle from 2024 in
Brady Pendley came in for relief and did not skip a beat from where Phillips left off, as he only allowed two hits in his 3.1 innings of work. The junior also stuck out four for his first save of his 2025 campaign.
All five of the Eagles' runs came from the long ball. Along with Parker's three-run shot, Tate woke up his bat with a solo shot to left-center in the fifth to eliminate an 0-6 start to the season. Plus,
Sean Smith added another run on in the eighth for his second home run in as many days on the season with a deep homer to straight away center.
With the shutout win, it now marks 17 straight innings for the Eagles pitching staff without allowing a run, and the offense's 15 runs is the most in the opening two games of the season since 2018.
The Eagles hope to sweep the Catamounts on Sunday with a new scheduled start time of 2:30 p.m. due to impending weather on Superhero Sunday at J.I. Clements Stadium. Evan vandebosch is set to get the start for the Eagles with Davis Wright on the moud for WCU.
