ARLINGTON, Texas — Bradley Morton had three hits, Drake Zupcic drove in two runs and Robert Whaley struck out a career-high six in 2.2 innings of scoreless relief to lead Appalachian State University baseball to a 5-2 win over UT Arlington in the second game of a doubleheader on Friday evening at Clay Gould Ballpark.

With the win in the nightcap, Appalachian State (16-35, 8-20 Sun Belt) earned a split in Friday's doubleheader at UTA (21-28, 12-14 Sun Belt). The Mavericks won the opener, 2-1.

The rubber match of the three-game series is set for Saturday at Clay Gould Ballpark. The series finale has been moved up to 2 p.m. ET due to a forecast for rain late in the day on Saturday.

Game Two: Appalachian State 5, UT Arlington 2

Five of the first six hitters in Appalachian State's batting order — Brandon Burris, Dillon Dobson, Michael Pierson, Morton and Noah Holmes — combined for 11 of the Mountaineers' 12 hits in the nightcap triumph.

Burris, Dobson, Pierson and Holmes had two hits apiece while Morton went 3-for-4 with a double, RBI and two runs scored.

The three-hit effort snapped a personal 0-for-14 skid for Morton, who had not recorded a hit since the second inning of the Mountaineers' March 27 contest at UALR. The senior had just one at-bat during a 19-game stretch from March 29-April 29 while battling a foot injury.

Appalachian State fell behind 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning but rallied for two runs in the top of the second and never trailed the rest of the way. Zupcic got the Mountaineers on the board with an RBI groundout and freshman Parker Henderson gave App State the lead for good with a sharp RBI single through the left side of the infield.

The Mountaineers extended the lead to 4-2 on another RBI groundout by Zupcic in the sixth and Morton's two-out RBI double down the right-field line in the seventh.

UTA cut the deficit to 4-2 with a run in the bottom of the seventh but that would be the only run the Mavericks would manage in four innings against three Mountaineer relievers. Freshman Ryan Ross, junior Caleb McCann and Whaley combined to surrender just three hits and strike out eight over their four innings of relief.

Whaley was particularly impressive, recording six of his eight outs on strikeouts. He stranded two UTA baserunners with a big strikeout to end the seventh, struck out the side in the eighth and, after a double and a walk brought the tying run to plate with no outs in the ninth, fanned the final two batters of game to nail down his second save of the season.

Freshman Travis Holden pitched into the sixth inning and allowed only one run to earn the first win of his career.

Dobson gave the Mountaineers a three-run lead with a solo home run in the top of the ninth. The homer was the junior's team-leading 12th of the season and the 29th of his career, moving him alone into fifth place on Appalachian State's all-time home run list.

Game One: UT Arlington 2, Appalachian State 1

UT Arlington's Travis Sibley flared a two-run double down the right-field line with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning to hand Appalachian State its ninth one-run loss of the season in Friday's opener.

Appalachian State scored its lone run of the game in the top of the first when Burris came home on a two-out error by Sibley at shortstop.

Burris, Dobson and Pierson strung together three-straight singles to open the game but the Mountaineers would manage only two more hits over their final 29 at-bats of the ballgame.

Despite the anemic offense, three-time Sun Belt Pitcher of the Week Taylor Thurber kept the Mountaineers in the game by keeping the Mavericks off the board until Sibley's two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the seventh.

Thurber scattered eight hits over eight innings of work for his fourth complete game of the season but suffered yet another tough-luck loss to fall to 4-9 on the season. He lowered his ERA to 2.34 and upped his strikeout-to-walk ratio to 73-to-8 in the unfortunate defeat.

UTA starter Chad Nack outdueled Thurber, allowing one run (unearned) on five hits over 7.2 innings to earn the win. Jacob Moreland recorded the final four outs for his first save of the season.