Early Week Roundup: Volleyball Completes the Sweep, Baseball Defeats In-State Rival Troy 6-5

Volleyball

Dominant 2nd Set Propels Samford to Season Sweep of ETSU 3-1

Photo taken by Bennet Looper

On Monday, Samford Volleyball (9-1) came back from a 1-0 set deficit to take the next three sets and claim victory over the ETSU Buccaneers (4-6) in Johnson City, TN, completing the season sweep. After dropping Set One 22-25, Samford took Set Two 25-5 and set the tone for the rest of the match. The Bulldogs never let ETSU back into the match taking Set Three 25-21 and winning the final set 25-14. Samford remains tied at the top of the standings with Mercer as the Bulldogs push their match winning streak out to 8 straight.

Those that saw our Instagram post on Sunday will, at the very least, recall Freshman Setter Kayla Keshock and her career day. Well she just blew that performance out of the water. On Monday, Keshock tallied 44 assists. The team combined for 48 assists on the entire day, meaning Keshock was responsible for 91.7% of the team's assists. Absolutely insane. However, the Freshman is no stranger to being a distributer for her teammates: Keshock tallied 1,534 assists in the 4 years while she was across the bay from Mobile, Alabama as a member of the Spanish Fort Toros. The future of Samford Volleyball looks to be in good hands.

The Volleyball team will be back home this Sunday and Monday as they host their season series against Furman (4-6). The Paladins are entering this weekend after splitting with Western Carolina, where Furman took the first match 3-1 and then got swept on Monday 3-0.

Baseball

One is an Event, Two is a coincidence, Three is a Streak

Photo taken by Chase Cochran

On Tuesday, Samford (7-5) started its long road trip by visiting the Trojans of Troy University (7-6) where the Bulldogs won 6-5 after scoring 2 runs in the top of the final frame and Chase Isbell got his 3rd save on the young season after striking out 3.

After replacing Brooks Carlson in the 3rd inning, Garrett Howe provided a spark for the Bulldogs in a big way as his bat was red hot. In the top of the 5th, Howe roped an opposite field full count triple to bring around Will David and Taylor Garris and knot the game back up at four a piece. Howe then drove in his third steak of the night by sacrificing himself to Right Field and allowing Will David to tag-up and break the deadlock to give the Bulldogs a slim 5-4 lead.

For most of the Samford pitchers, today's action came with pretty short rest. Starting Pitcher Blake Bortak threw four complete innings, allowing four earned runs on 5 hits while striking out 9, a career high. Bortak came into the game on just 3 days rest, as he was the only Samford pitcher to not give up a run in Saturday's game against Toledo. Carson Cupo (3-0) (pitched on both Friday and again on Sunday) picked up the win this evening after lasting one and a third inning, denying the Trojans to cross the plate and striking out 1 from the home team.

As noted earlier in the recap, site co-owner and editor Chase Isbell picked up his 3rd save on the season after striking out 3 Trojans. Unfortunately, these 3 Ks were all after the Trojans strung together 3 hits, allowing the potential game-winning run to come to the plate each time Isbell threw the Troy batter a chair.

By my account, this was the first earned run against Chase this season. While one run did score under his watch during Sunday's rubber match against Toledo, the only reason the batter got on base was because of a dropped 3rd strike that rolled all the way to the backstop. Officially, Isbell's Earned Run Average is a solid 1.93. However, if we agree that the run from Sunday's game was unearned, Chase would see his ERA lowered by nearly a full point with the new average being 0.99. Looks like I'll have to have a heart to heart with Samford's official scorer.

Samford will try to exact revenge on Wednesday as they stay in South East Alabama and do battle with Alabama State. First pitch is set for 6pm. All time, Samford is 5-1 against the Hornets when the Bulldogs bat first.

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