
GAFFNEY, S.C. – Carson Chavies and Dyllon Barrett had three hits apiece, Hudson Cepparulo smacked a pair of doubles in his collegiate debut, and the Union University baseball team defeated Limestone University 6-4 on Friday in the opening game of the 2025 season.
Union starter Eli Snelson pitched 5.0 innings of one-run ball, working around a double and a triple among six hits as his Bulldogs gradually built a late four-run lead. Limestone made it a one-run affair in the eighth inning but could never overtake the Bulldog offense, which was consistent with 14 hits–at least one in every inning and from seven spots in the order.
Union took a first-inning lead when the first of Cepparulo’s two-baggers scored Elijah Ramsey, who had reached on an error. Another Limestone error–the second of three on the day–with Alec Hardy batting scored Cepparulo, and Union held a 2-1 lead after a frame of baseball.
The Bulldogs tripled their lead in the third inning when a Grant Ross single ahead of back-to-back doubles by Hardy and Chavies made the game 4-1. The Bulldogs manufactured a run in the top of the seventh inning with a sequence of single, wild pitch, ground out, and another hit.
Briant Bazydlo faced the minimum in two relief innings, getting himself out of the sixth with a pickoff and the seventh with a ground ball back to himself for a 1-4-3 twin killing.
With the score 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Limestone opened its turn at bat with a triple and scored three runs between a two-RBI Peter Adams single and a Sion Barnette sacrifice fly.
Union reliever Noah Toney got himself out of the jam with a strikeout and a popup, the lead still intact, and pitched a scoreless bottom of the ninth after receiving an extra run of cushion the half-inning prior.
Barrett finished 3-3, Chavies went 3-4 with a double, and Colby Davis and Ross both finished 2-5. Union didn’t walk in the contest.
Union tied its 2024 single-game high of four doubles on Friday, and the Bulldogs’ 14 hits were only surpassed on four occasions last season.
The Bulldogs are 1-0 for the first time since the 2020 season.
The three-game series will conclude tomorrow with a noon doubleheader.