By Will Nunn, Sports Staffer
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The St. Bonaventure University baseball team opened its 2026 season with a four-game split at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
The series, which consisted of a pair of doubleheaders, began on a brisk, sunny Friday afternoon at Greenwood Field in Asheville, North Carolina, and the home team got out of the gates hot.
The Bulldogs jumped on Bonaventure senior starting pitcher David James for three runs in the first inning. Sophomore outfielder Jake Minarik scored on a wild pitch, and freshman infielder Ben Green drove in a pair with a double down the right field line.
Sophomore catcher Blaize Johnson broke the game open in the fifth, with a three-run homer to give the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead. A pair of Asheville right-handers–senior Lucas Boesen and redshirt freshman Drew Turner–combined to pitch a shutout, giving up just four total hits and striking out a combined seven batters en route to an 8-0 win.
The Bonaventure offense immediately bounced back in game two, scoring a pair of runs in the first inning off a double by redshirt junior outfielder Anthony Fernandez and a single by junior catcher Antonio Cordeiro.
Johnson tied the game in the bottom of the frame with a two-run single and the Bulldogs held a 4-2 lead by the third inning. A 5-run fourth inning, capped off by a three-run blast by Fernandez, gave the Bonnies the lead back, before the Bulldogs once again tied the game at seven in the fifth.
Redshirt junior designated hitter Ashton Ross gave the Bonnies the lead for good in the sixth with a go-ahead run-scoring double to right. Bonaventure tacked on three more to win game two 11-7.
The Bonnies picked up right where they left off to begin Saturday’s doubleheader, scoring four runs in the third, highlighted by a Cordeiro two-run triple, to jump out to a 4-0 lead.
Junior right-hander Enger Paulino gave the Bonnies a quality start, giving up just one run across five innings of work, striking out four.
A two-run homer by junior third baseman Manuel Castro in the seventh and a two-run double by sophomore catcher Brian Carrothers in the eighth blew the game open for the Bonnies, who held on to a 10-5 win to take the series lead.
Bonaventure grabbed a lead in the first inning of the series finale thanks to Cordeiro’s RBI single, but a pair of run-scoring doubles by Johnson and junior catcher Owen Michelson put the Bulldogs ahead in the bottom of the frame.
The duo of junior righty Daylinh Nguyen-Brown and senior righty Matthew Hall shut the Bonaventure offense down the rest of the way, combining to strike out six and allow just six hits in the 9-1 game four win, which was capped off by Johnson’s second homer of the weekend.
The Bonnies remain on the road for a three-game series with Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. First pitch for game one is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Friday.
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