WILMINGTON, N.C. — Colin Schmid fired strike after strike, and he pitched with a lead after Appalachian State's bats heated up.
A junior left-hander, Schmid struck out 11 batters over seven innings and allowed only two runs on four hits as the Mountaineers evened their series against UNCW with a 6-2 victory at Brooks Field.
App State (2-3) totaled 11 hits Saturday, with
Drew Beck and
Kendall McGowan accounting for three apiece. They benefited from two hits apiece by
Alex Leshock and CJ Brown, who hit the first home run of his Appalachian career and scored twice.
The Mountaineers took an early lead on the Seahawks (4-2) and posted runs in five different innings in support of Schmid, who improved to 1-0 while issuing just one walk in a 99-pitch outing. He struck out at least 10 batters for the second time in his career, adding to his 13-strikeout performance at Georgia Southern in 2017.
"He did a phenomenal job," App State head coach
Kermit Smith said. "He was very competitive, and any time something didn't go his way, he's done a great job all year of moving on to the next pitch. I thought he was very single-minded — each pitch he threw, he was very convicted to it. He just had dominant stuff today."
Through five games against two teams picked to win their respective leagues, including one coming off an NCAA Regional appearance, App State's starting pitchers have a 2.54 ERA.
Schmid struck out three batters in his seventh and final inning of work, fanning two straight after David Sheaffer hit a one-out homer to cut UNCW's deficit to 4-2. App State reliever
Luke Watts added two more strikeouts over the final two innings, and the game ended with shortstop
Joel McDaniel initiating a 6-4-3 double play.
Leshock's RBI triple to score Brown on a perfectly executed hit-and-run play and
Bailey Welch's RBI single to center field enabled the Mountaineers to take a four-run lead into UNCW's last two at-bats.
"We came out with a good mindset and had a lot of good energy in the dugout," Smith said. "It was just one of those days that was a pretty complete day. I thought we did everything very well."
App State went ahead for good in second inning, when McGowan delivered a one-out double down the third-base line and Brown reached on a two-out walk. McGowan scored after Leshock's hard-hit grounder to third was misplayed for an error.
Brown recorded the first hit of his young App State career when he homered to left in the fourth inning for a 2-0 lead against UNCW starter Zarion Sharpe.
The Seahawks trailed 2-1 following an RBI double from Sheaffer with two away in the bottom of the fourth inning, and the Mountaineers regained a two-run cushion when McDaniel scored from second on Beck's RBI single to center. McDaniel had reached on a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a groundout before Beck came through.
Beck started a seventh-inning threat with a one-out double to left field and scored on a two-out single to center from McGowan, who was down 0-2 in the count before putting a 2-2 pitch in play for a 4-1 advantage.
"We came out from the first pitch on, and I thought we were pretty complete the whole day," Smith said.
The series is scheduled to conclude Sunday at 2 p.m. with
Brandon Boone as App State's projected starter on the mound. Logan Beehler is the projected starter for UNCW.
