Box Score DECATUR, Ga. — Georgia State scored three runs in the bottom of the 11th inning to hand Appalachian State University baseball a heartbreaking 5-4 defeat on Sunday afternoon at the GSU Baseball Complex.
With the loss, Appalachian State (11-29, 6-15 Sun Belt) dropped its three-game Sun Belt Conference series to Georgia State (18-21, 7-11 Sun Belt), two games to one.
App State sophomore
Parker Henderson broke a 2-2 tie with a two-out, two-run double in the top of the 11th inning. The clutch hit by the third-year sophomore capped a true two-run rally for the Mountaineers.
Matt Vernon and
Brian Bauk both singled with two outs before scoring on Henderson's double to left field.
Bauk (2-2) went to the mound in the bottom of the 11th in search of his fifth save of the season but was only able to record one. Georgia State strung together five hits in the frame, including an RBI double by Jack Thompson and a RBI single by Jaylen Woullard that knotted the score at 4-4.
Following Woullard's game-tying single, another single and a walk loaded the bases for cleanup hitter Jarrett Hood, who singled over a drawn-in outfield to drive in the winning run.
Georgia State's 11th-inning comeback erased a furious Appalachian State rally that saw the Mountaineers come back from a 2-0, sixth-inning deficit.
Jason Curtis drove in App State's first run with an RBI groundout in the sixth and
Tyler Stroup tied it with a solo home run to right field in the seventh. The homer was Stroup's team-best fourth of the season.
Appalachian State had several chances to take control late in the ballgame but couldn't come up with a clutch hit between Stroup's tying homer in the seventh and Henderson's go-ahead double in the 11th. The Mountaineers left 14 men on base, including two apiece in the ninth, 10th and 11th innings.
Stroup went 3-for-6 to lead App State's 10-hit attack. Bauk added two hits and two runs.
The Mountaineers return to action on Tuesday night at BB&T BallPark in Charlotte versus red-hot Wake Forest. Game time is set for 6 p.m.
