BOONE, N.C. ? David Towarnicky's looping line drive into right center field with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning brought Rand Smith home with the winning run in Appalachian State University baseball's 4-3 victory over High Point on Wednesday evening at Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.

Appalachian (11-15) has won five of its last six and sports a three-game winning streak for the first time since sweeping a three-game series from Jacksonville State on the opening weekend of the season.

ASU's decisive 11th inning was a microcosm of the entertaining game, which featured strong pitching and clutch hitting but also costly mistakes and missed opportunities for both clubs.

Jeremy Dowdy led off the bottom of the 11th with a solid single to left field but was gunned down at second base on a failed sacrifice bunt attempt by Smith. One pitch later, Smith advanced to second on a wild pitch to put the winning run in scoring position with just one out. However, Wes Hobson flew out to right field on a 3-0 pitch for the second out of the inning.

High Point (7-16) pitched around red-hot Isaac Harrow, walking him on four pitches to bring Towarnicky to the plate. Towarnicky lofted an 0-1 pitch from Zach Scott over the second baseman and into shallow right center field, where it was corralled by right fielder Drew Geissinger. Breaking on contact from second base with two outs, Smith slid into home in plenty of time to beat Geissinger's throw.

Despite Towarnicky's heroics, the play of the game came in the top of the ninth, when right fielder Jason Wallace made a spectacular diving catch on a ball belted to the right center field gap by HPU catcher Billy Alvino. Had the ball fallen to the ground, it almost assuredly would have rolled to the wall and scored two runs. Instead, the grab ended the inning and squelched High Point's final scoring threat.  

Not to be overshadowed by the late-inning drama was the performance turned in by the Mountaineer pitching staff down the stretch. The Panthers rapped out 11 hits over the first six innings to take a 3-2 lead but the Apps limited HPU to just one hit over five scoreless stanzas to close out the game.

Trailing 3-2 after six-and-a-half innings, Appalachian knotted the game at 3-3 on Hobson's two-out RBI double down the left field line in the bottom of the seventh. ASU also had a terrific opportunity to end the ballgame in regulation but left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to send the contest to extra frames.

Sophomore Taylor Miller (1-2) rebounded from some shaky outings as of late by sitting down all six batters he faced in the 10th and 11th innings to earn his first win of the season. He was the sixth Mountaineer reliever of the evening, the final five of which (Nick Daniels, Josh Dowdy, Chris Patterson, Zach Quate and Miller) didn't allow a run.

HPU's Scott surrendered his first earned run of the season in the bottom of the 11th and fell to 1-3.

Nick DeRose led the Apps' 14-hit effort with a 3-for-5 showing. Harrow hit his team-high-tying sixth home run of the season in the fourth inning and finished 1-for-5, giving him 15 hits (including seven for extra bases) in his last 24 at-bats.

Alfie Wheeler paced High Point with a 3-for-6 evening at the plate.

Appalachian looks to stay hot and make a move up the Southern Conference standings when it travels to Furman for a three-game series this weekend. The set begins with a 7 p.m. first pitch on Friday at FU's Latham Stadium.