GREENSBORO, N.C. - UNC Greensboro's Blake Hassebrock turned in 7.2 innings of scoreless relief and Appalachian State University baseball saw its winning streak snapped at nine with a 3-1 loss to UNCG on Friday night at UNCG Baseball Stadium.

Coming off a week-long break due to final exams, Appalachian (28-18, 13-13 SoCon) showed no ill effects from the long layoff at first, as Rand Smith drove the first pitch of the game over the left field wall to give ASU a 1-0 lead.

Wes Hobson followed the blast with a single and Isaac Harrow walked to put runners on first and second with nobody out. UNCG starter Greg Martin retired the next two batters but walked Nick DeRose to load the bases.

While facing DeRose, Martin suffered an unspecified injury and gave way to Hassebrock after only two-thirds of an inning. In a sign of things to come, Hassebrock struck out Jason Wallace to limit Appalachian to just one run in the first.

From there, ASU starter Aubrey Edens settled into a classic pitchers' duel with Hassebrock. The Spartans evened the score without the benefit of a hard-hit ball in the third, as it got a seeing-eye single through the right side and a pair of infield hits to knot the contest at 1-1.

The ballgame remained tied until the bottom of the seventh inning. Approaching his 100th pitch of the evening, Edens allowed the first two batters of the stanza to reach base. UNCG's Kris Richards came to the plate with the intention of sacrificing the runners to second and third, but his first bunt attempt appeared to roll foul just past the batter's box on the first-base side.

ASU catcher Jeremy Dowdy grabbed the ball after he thought it rolled into foul territory, but the home-plate umpire ruled it fair to load the bases with nobody out.

Chris Patterson came on in relief of Edens and struck out the first batter he faced but Brent O'Berry followed with a double into the right-center field gap that scored two and gave the Spartans a 3-1 lead.

Appalachian finally chased Hassebrock from the ballgame with one out in the ninth and went on to load the bases against UNCG closer Rob Gilliam. However, Gilliam struck out Smith and Hobson to end the ballgame and hand ASU its fifth series-opening loss in five road sets this season.

Edens (5-3) struck out a career-high eight but was charged with all three runs to suffer the tough-luck loss. He was out-dueled by Hassebrock (2-1), who surrendered only three hits and at one point faced 16-consecutive batters without allowing a hit. He struck out six in his career-long 7.2-inning relief outing.

Despite hitting a batter and issuing a walk in the ninth, Gilliam picked up his fourth save of the year.

Smith recorded two of Appalachian's five hits in the losing effort, which was just ASU's fourth setback in its past 26 games. Harrow had his career-best 14-game hitting streak snapped with an 0-for-3 evening, but the all-America candidate's batting average remains well above .400 at .425.

O'Berry and Richards had two hits apiece for UNCG (17-26, 5-18 SoCon).

The teams continue their three-game Southern Conference series on Saturday at 2 p.m. at UNCG Stadium.