By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            In 23 years as a coach and more than 35 years around the game, Baylor baseball coach Steve Rodriguez figures he's seen it all, including a ball getting stuck in a player's jersey.
            Now, maybe, he can say he really has seen it all. 
            Behind a career-high six-inning outing from starter Will Rigney (2-0) and a four-run third inning, the Bears (16-11) defeated East Tennessee State, 7-4, Sunday afternoon to complete their first series sweep since winning four-straight from North Carolina A&T exactly a year ago. 
            Highlighting that four-run third inning was a hard-hit ball to the right-field wall by freshman DH Casen Neumann that seemingly disappeared. 
            "I thought the ball went behind (rightfielder Tommy Barth)," Rodriguez said. "I thought it kind of trapped and then it dropped. I looked on the ground and didn't see anything. I didn't see anything bounce over, the (Jose) Canseco thing. And then, all of a sudden, I see a white dot stuck to the padding. And I'm like, 'Is that the ball?' Sure enough, everybody's looking around, and it was the baseball. Ground-rule double, there you go."
            Barth seemed to have a bead on the ball, but it sailed just over his reach and got wedged in the padding, near the top of the right-field wall. By rule, it's a dead ball and a ground-rule double, with Neumann driving in Kyle Nevin. 
            "That was weird. I thought he caught it at first," said sophomore catcher Harrison Caley, who was in the on-deck circle, with a good view of Neumann's hit, "but then I saw everyone still running. I've never seen that. That was weird."
            Rigney, who had gone through Tommy John and Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgeries that sidelined him for most of the last two seasons, got into the sixth inning for the third time in his last four starts.  This time, he threw 85 pitches in a career-high six innings, allowing two runs on six hits and two walks with a career-best eight strikeouts. 
            "I'm only a year out of (TOS) surgery. The first inning the past couple weeks, I've had a little bit of pain and discomfort," Rigney said. "But after that, I feel fine. I feel like I was able to settle in."
            Rodriguez said it took a while for Rigney to get loose, but "once it got to about the third inning, I thought he had his best stuff."
            "The ball was coming out of his hand better, the slider was a little bit sharper," he said. "Sometimes, you can see certain things, but the hitters will tell you a lot just about how they're reacting to the pitch. It just seemed like once it hit the third inning, he was warmed up and ready to go. And it seemed like he had his best stuff at that point."
            Rigney gave up a solo homer in the first to Bryce Hodge, who went 4-for-4 with a double, two homers and three RBI. But, he worked a 1-2-3 second inning and gave up one run on four hits over the last five frames. 
            "My fastball wasn't too hot, but my slider was pretty good," Rigney said. "I thought they were going to start laying off of it, but they didn't, so I just kept throwing it."
            Trailing 1-0 for the third-straight game, the Bears took the lead four batters into their half of the first inning. After Jack Pineda walked and Tre Richardson reached on an error, Jared McKenzie moved the runners with a groundout to first, then Nevin delivered a two-run single through the left side. 
            After a quiet second, Baylor broke it open with a four-run third inning as the Bears brought eight batters to the plate. Richardson hit a high fly to right that Barth lost in the sun for a double, followed by a Nevin walk and Chase Wehsener's RBI single up the middle. 
            Neumann's double plated another run, then Caley drilled a two-run single to right that made it 6-1. 
            "Honestly, I've had a really good two-strike approach," said Caley, who went 2-for-4 to raise his batting average to .318. "If I get behind in the count, it's more of a comfort for me. And I'm driving the ball the other way. So, I'm kind of in a comfort zone a little bit."
            Just like they did in Saturday's 8-7 Baylor victory, the Buccaneers (17-8) kept plugging away, scoring a run in the fifth on a Hodge double, a two-out run off reliever Adam Muirhead in the seventh and then cut the deficit to 7-4 in the ninth when Hodge blasted a no-doubter to left field off closer Mason Marriott. 
            "East Tennessee is a good ballclub," Rodriguez said. "They've got some arms they're rolling out there, 95, 96 (mph), and the meat of their order is really dangerous. You saw that today. You make a mistake over the middle of the plate, and they're going to crush it."
            ETSU reliever Matt Bollenbacher retired 12-straight batters between the fourth and eighth innings. But, Caley reached on a throwing error by the shortstop and came all the way around to score on a triple by Antonio Valdez for an insurance run in the eighth. 
            After Hodge's two-out homer in the ninth, the Bucs got two runners on base with a walk and a single, bringing the tying run to the plate. Marriott, though, retired Jackson Green on a liner to leftfielder Kobe Andrade to end the game and pick up his fifth save.
            "Every one of our weekends this year has been against a really good team," Rodriguez said. "Now, we're going back into conference knowing – once again, these guys were throwing mid-90s – so we've seen it all year. Our guys are pretty comfortable with it now."
            Riding a season-high five-game winning streak, Baylor will play its next five on the road, facing Dallas Baptist on Tuesday, a series next weekend at West Virginia (16-10, 2-1) and then another mid-week game at Texas State. 


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 65^th 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.