No. 5 Baseball Opens 2026 Season with Two Wins
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
IU Kokomo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 |
|
Tennessee Wesleyan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | X | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
IU Kokomo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
|
Tennessee Wesleyan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
ATHENS, Tenn.- The fifth-ranked baseball team opened the 2026 season on Thursday. Tennessee Wesleyan started a four-game series against the Indiana University Kokomo Cougars with two games, winning the games 8-1 and 2-1.
Game One:
Defense was the name of the game for the first four innings, as the first run of the game did not come across until the fifth inning. Unfortunately, that first run was scored by Kokomo. TWU tied the game in the sixth inning though.
Kolton Reynolds came to the plate and blasted a ball to tie the game 1-1. In the seventh inning, the Bulldogs broke the tie with a six-run inning. With two outs on the board, the bases were loaded with Jonathan Bosque, Rob Gordon, and Reynolds. An error allowed Josh Shelly to reach first and gave Bosque and Gordon the space to score. A single by David Ballenilla brought Reynolds in while Shelly scored on a Bryant O'Neill single. Ballenilla scored on an error on the hit to make the score 6-1. Tennessee Wesleyan ended the inning ahead 7-1 after Ethan Wright scored as a courtesy runner for O'Neill on Jacob Tolson's single.
In the eighth inning, Bosque scored the final run of the game, scoring on an Allan Gil Fernandez groundout to give the team the 8-1 win.
Cameron Goffar finished with eight strikeouts in six innings on the mound. Bradley Johnson had two strikeouts in two innings while picking up the win. Shelly led the team with two RBIs while Fernandez, Reynolds, Ballenilla, O'Neill, and Tolson each had an RBI.
Game Two:
Tennessee Wesleyan took an early lead in the second game. After getting on first with a single, Reynolds scored in the bottom of the first on a double by Shelly to give the team 1-0 lead they held until the fifth inning.
In the fifth inning, Kokomo tied the game. A scoreless sixth inning and top of the seventh inning led to a walk-off hit in the bottom of the seventh.
The walk-off hit came in the form of a solo home run off the first pitch Wright faced, giving the Bulldogs the 2-1 walk-off win to end the day.
McGuire Taylor had seven strikeouts in five innings of work while Koehn Thomas, who picked up the win, had two strikeouts in two innings.
TWU (2-0) closes out the series against Kokomo on Friday with two games beginning at 12:00 p.m.