Favorites and lower seeds advance on opening day of AAC baseball tournament in Kingsport

Opening day of the 2026 Appalachian Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament produced four decisive results Tuesday at Hunter Wright Stadium in Kingsport, Tenn., with Bryan, Spartanburg Methodist, Montreat and Tennessee Wesleyan moving on in the neutral-site bracket. The day began with No. 6 seed Bryan beating No. 7 Reinhardt 9-1, followed by No. 4 seed Spartanburg Methodist topping No. 9 seed Columbia International 9-1. In the later games, No. 8 seed Montreat shut out No. 5 seed Pikeville 10-0 in eight innings, and No. 3 seed Tennessee Wesleyan closed the day with a 13-3 win over No. 10 seed Truett McConnell.

Bryan set the tone in the opener behind a complete game from Tanner Everett, who worked all nine innings and allowed three hits and one earned run while striking out seven. The Lions broke through with two runs in the third inning, then turned the game with a five-run sixth. Cyrus Campos finished with two hits, two runs and three RBIs, including part of the sixth-inning surge and another RBI knock during Bryan's two-run eighth. Jayron Morris drove in three runs as Bryan won despite collecting eight hits, while Reinhardt was limited to three hits and committed four errors.

Spartanburg Methodist answered in the second game after Columbia International scored first in the opening inning. The Pioneers took control with five runs in the second, then added to the margin in the fourth and seventh to finish with 14 hits in a 9-1 victory. Brady Jeffcoat scored three times and had three hits, Elijah Franz added three hits and two RBIs, and Travis Dannecker went the distance on the mound. Dannecker was credited in the summary with a complete-game win after holding CIU to one earned run, and the structured game data showed Spartanburg Methodist outlasting eight CIU hits while keeping the Rams off the board after the first inning.

Montreat's win over Pikeville was the most one-sided shutout of the afternoon. The No. 8 seed scored in the first, second, third, fourth, sixth and eighth innings and piled up 16 hits in a 10-0 result that ended after eight innings. Daniel Restrepo delivered the first run with an RBI single in the first, then drove in another during the third. Zachary Long supplied the biggest swing, a two-run homer to right in the fourth that stretched the lead to 6-0, and later added a sacrifice fly. Matthew Brunner reached base repeatedly and finished 4 for 5 with four runs scored, while Ryan Henrickson handled the game on the mound with seven scoreless innings, six strikeouts and five hits allowed before the bullpen completed the shutout. Gabriel Ferrell's pinch-hit, two-run single in the eighth accounted for the final margin.

Tennessee Wesleyan closed the first day with the highest-scoring performance of the tournament so far, beating Truett McConnell 13-3 behind 18 hits. The Bulldogs seized control immediately with five runs in the first inning, including a two-run double from Josh Shelly. Truett McConnell got within 7-3 through six innings, but Tennessee Wesleyan kept answering and then put the game away with a four-run seventh. Shelly finished with four hits, three doubles and four RBIs, David Ballenilla added three hits and four RBIs, and Rob Gordon had four hits and scored three runs. McGwire Taylor worked six innings and allowed three runs, two earned, to earn the win.

The tournament's opening-day summary matched the bracket line closely: higher seeds Bryan, Spartanburg Methodist and Tennessee Wesleyan all advanced, while Montreat delivered the day's upset as the No. 8 seed against No. 5 Pikeville. With four games completed at Hunter Wright Stadium, the opening round established both the expected contenders and an early lower-seed threat, with Montreat's eight-inning shutout standing alongside Tennessee Wesleyan's 18-hit outburst as the strongest late-day statements.