East Tennessee State University’s softball team will begin its Southern Conference road schedule against Furman with a three-game series in Greenville, South Carolina, starting March 28.
The matchup is significant as the Buccaneers seek to improve their record against the Paladins under head coach Cheryl Milligan. Over the past four seasons, ETSU has posted a 3-6 record versus Furman. The upcoming games mark Milligan’s fourth season leading the program and present an opportunity for her to reach her 600th career win as a head coach.
The series includes two games on March 28 at Pepsi Stadium, scheduled for 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., followed by a third game on March 29 at 1 p.m. Both teams enter conference play with identical records of zero wins and three losses in Southern Conference competition so far this season.
Several players have contributed notable performances this year. During the Winthrop Invitational, one Buccaneer recorded three home runs across three games, including a decisive game-winning hit against Bucknell that brought in three runs. The team also swept Alabama A&M in a doubleheader, with different pitchers securing victories in each game. Another highlight was an 8-7 win over Tennessee State University where one pitcher threw more than five innings without issuing any walks and limited TSU to just two runs during that stretch.
ETSU achieved its second-best offensive performance since 2002 by scoring seventeen runs against Tennessee State—a new facility record at Betty Basler Field—with contributions from nearly every player who stepped up to bat. Additional individual milestones included multiple players hitting their first or second career home runs during early-season tournaments such as the Scotsman Invitational.
Looking ahead, ETSU is set for a regular season featuring fifty-two games—twenty-five at home and twenty-seven away—against opponents from ten different conferences. The squad returns twenty-two players while adding seven newcomers and was selected eighth overall in the Southern Conference Preseason Poll.
