GREENSBORO, N.C. — A strong relief effort from Appalachian State freshman
Will Sprinkle gave the Mountaineers a chance to rally, but North Carolina A&T posted a 9-2 home victory at War Memorial Stadium on Wednesday night.
Pitching with his team facing a 7-2 deficit, Sprinkle threw four scoreless innings against the Aggies, who have a 3-2 win against UNCG in addition to close midweek losses against N.C. State (9-7) and North Carolina (1-0) this season.
Sprinkle had three perfect innings and retired 11 of the 13 batters he faced, receiving help from a double play after he gave up an infield single and issued a walk with one out in the fifth. He lowered his ERA to 1.08 while increasing his streak of consecutive scoreless innings to 10.0.
Offensively,
Bailey Welch went 2-for-3, drew a walk and scored once.
Kendall McGowan had one hit and scored the other run.
"It's fun to see the emergence of
Will Sprinkle out of the bullpen," App State head coach
Kermit Smith said. "As a freshman, he's really coming into his own and giving our team a lift. He kept putting up zeroes to give us a shot tonight. Now we have get ready for a big series this weekend."
The Aggies (17-15) led 7-0 through three innings, scoring three times in the second and four times in the third.
The Mountaineers (8-23) responded with a two-run fourth, as
Conner Leonard drew a bases-loaded walk to chase starting pitcher Jonah Owenby and reliever Leon Davidson's wild pitch brought home McGowan.
A leadoff walk from Welch, McGowan's one-out single and
Drew Beck reaching on a hit by pitch started the rally, but Davidson followed his wild pitch by retiring two straight batters with runners on second and third to limit the damage.
Welch and
Riley Smith had back-to-back singles to begin the game, but the left-handed Owenby erased both runners with successful pickoff moves to first. North Carolina A&T struck first with consecutive walks turning into two runs on a Zach McLean single that was misplayed. McLean scored from third on a groundout in the next at-bat.
Three walks preceded a run-producing hit by pitch in the fourth, and another run came home when relief pitcher
Kaleb Bowman induced a 6-4-3 double play. McLean had an RBI double to establish a 6-0 lead, and Myles Sowell followed an infield single with an RBI single to center. Bowman's strikeout with the bases loaded kept the deficit from increasing.
Out of the bullpen,
Cameron Kepley replaced Sprinkle to begin the bottom of the eighth, and
Luke Watts had two strikeouts in two-thirds of an inning.
App State returns to action Friday at 6 p.m. with the start of a three-game Sun Belt Conference home series against Louisiana. Single-game tickets can be purchased by clicking
HERE as well as by calling or visiting the ticket office. Weekend games (Fri-Sun) are $10 for adults and $5 for youth.
