Mercer baseball (19-10, 3-3 SoCon) beat Georgia State University (17-11) Tuesday evening, March 25, in dramatic fashion, with a walk-off three-run home run by Ty Dalley ‘26. The win 9-7 was the first in a 3-1 stretch for the Bears after losing their first Southern Conference series of the season against The Citadel.
The first inning started off with offensive struggles for the Panthers, who failed to record a hit off of Bears starter Craig Kalkbrenner ‘27. Kalbrenner, Lawson Cole '27 and Bryce Hawkins '27 combined to hold GSU to three hits and seven K's through eight innings, with Lawson and Hawkins each picking up three innings. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Bears' pitching staff unraveled. Closer Terry Busse '25 entered the game with a 0.57 ERA, but the Panthers pounced on him, ending his night after 25 pitches, seven batters faced and six runs allowed. Collin Ewaldsen '28 finished the inning for Busse, striking out one batter and allowing one hit.
For Mercer's offense, Ty Dalley put the Bears on the scoreboard with a three-run home run that drove in Drew Johnson '26 and Titan Kamaka '26 on a first-pitch blast to right field. The teams' bats dried up until the seventh inning, when Kamaka drove in Brown with a single to right field.
Then came the deluge of GSU runs against Busse, putting the Bears in position to lose their seventh game at home in the month of March.
Mercer began the bottom of the ninth with singles from Zach Thompson '26 and a strikeout by Kamaka. A single by Johnson followed by a strikeout looking by Bradley Frye ‘25 meant it came down to Dalley, who had previously homered, to finish out the game with the Bears down to their final out. Dalley continued his monstrous night and hit a walk-off three-run home run to give Mercer the narrow win. The homer was Dalley's ninth of the season and second of the game.
Following the game, Mercer won a three-game series against Western Carolina University, the first series win against the Catamounts since the 2021 season. The Bears will take on No. 25 Georgia Tech on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Atlanta.
Jacob Hossler '28 is majoring in Biology with a potential English minor. In his free time he enjoys photography, writing, and playing tennis and soccer.
