Bears Rally To Clinch Series, SoCon Regular Season Title In Johnson City

Friday, May 15

Johnson City, Tenn.

2 p.m.

Mercer University

42-13, 14-6

East Tennessee State

30-21, 10-10

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Mercer	0	0	0	2	2	1	3	1	0	9	11	1
ETSU	0	0	0	4	2	0	0	1	0	7	10	0

Mercer Baseball 2026 Regular Season Champions

Bears Rally To Clinch Series, SoCon Regular Season Title In Johnson City

5/15/2026 6:05:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Rylee Bamberger, Rylee.m.bamberger@live.mercer.edu

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – An occasion nearly a decade in the making, the Mercer Bears (42-13, 14-6 SoCon) earned a piece of the Southern Conference regular season championship for the fourth time since joining the league in 2014 after a 9-7 win over East Tennessee State (30-21, 10-10 SoCon) on Friday afternoon.

Decisive Plays:

After a dominant three innings from both sides' starting pitchers, the Bears started the scoring in the top of the fourth inning with a pair of RBI singles by Dylan LaPointe and Drew Johnson. ETSU responded with four runs and three extra-base hits in the home half of the inning and took a 4-2 lead. Braydon Kersey drove in two runs and evened the score with a single in the fifth. The Bucs answered with a two-run single of their own in the bottom of the inning. Dylan LaPointe powered a solo home run (14) to right-center field to cut Mercer's deficit to one in the sixth. Chris Katz re-claimed the lead with a two-run home run (19) in the seventh before LaPointe hit a sacrifice fly to deep center field and made it an 8-6 ballgame. Ethan Buffone launched a rocket to left field for his second collegiate home run. ETSU brought the game within two runs with a sacrifice fly before Kersey struck out Tristan Curless to strand two runners in the eighth. After Jamie Palmese started the ninth inning with a lead-off double, Kersey forced Ian Guanzon to fly out, picked off Palmese and then struck out Gabe Juarez to clinch his fifth save of the year and the regular season title.

Notables:

Mercer lifted the Southern Conference regular season championship trophy for the fourth time since joining the league in 2014. The Bears currently sit atop of the SoCon standings with a game in hand over the Western Carolina Catamounts with one game remaining in the regular season. Mercer has the opportunity to claim the regular season title outright with a win tomorrow. If the Bears fall in the series finale against ETSU, they become co-champions with the Catamounts and will enter the SoCon championship tournament as the No. 2 seed.
The Bears sit one win away from tying the most wins in a single season in program history. In 155 years of Mercer baseball, the Bears have surpassed 40 wins just three times. In 2013, Mercer won a program-best 43 games.
Mercer's pitching staff surpassed 500 total strikeouts for just the fifth time in school history in Friday's win over ETSU. The last time the Bears reached the 500-strikeout mark was in 2022 (550).

Key Contributors:

Dylan LaPointe: 2-for-3, 3 RBI, HR
Braydon Kersey: 2-for-4, 2 RBI, 2B, R, HBP | 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, SV, 21 NP
Chris Katz: 1-for-4, 2 RBI, HR, 2 R, BB
Ethan Buffone: 1-for-3, RBI, HR, R

Next Game:

The Bears conclude the regular season with the series finale against ETSU on Saturday, May 16. First pitch is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Pitching matchups are TBA. Live stats are available here. All games will be streamed on ESPN+.