BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State (6-9) opens its Sun Belt Conference schedule with a home series against Georgia State, which has an 11-6 lead in the all-time series. Because of a weather-related rescheduling with Georgia Southern last season, of the Mountaineers' 10 conference series this year, six will be played in Boone instead of five.
The series is scheduled to begin Friday at 4 p.m., followed by 1 p.m. games against the Panthers (5-12) on Saturday and Sunday. All three games will be available to watch for free on AppVision, not ESPN+. Single-game tickets can be purchased online by
clicking HERE.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
RECAPPING THE LAST WEEK
On Tuesday,
Kendall McGowan and
Bailey Welch hit solo homers in a 5-4 loss at Wake Forest, which had 11 strikeouts against App State pitching but scored a tiebreaking run in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Last weekend, the Mountaineers traveled to Greenville, S.C., for the First Pitch Invitational at Fluor Field. App State swept a Sunday doubleheader by winning 14-0 against Furman and 9-6 against Michigan State.
Tyler Tuthill and four relief pitchers combined on a one-hitter in the 14-0 victory, and
Luke Drumheller tied an NCAA record by hitting five doubles in that game.
Kaleb Bowman threw four innings of scoreless relief vs. the Spartans, and
Riley Smith added to a one-run lead with a two-run homer in the ninth inning.
BEATING THE DRUM
Freshman second baseman
Luke Drumheller broke a school and Sun Belt Conference record with his five-double game, which was voted the national Performance of the Week by the Golden Spikes Award and helped him receive Sun Belt Player of the Week recognition. He became just the seventh Division I player to hit five doubles in a single game and the first since Western Carolina's Aaron Attaway in 2012.
Drumheller, who had a 12-game hitting streak to raise his average to .462, now ranks second in the league (behind just South Alabama's Ethan Wilson) and 35th nationally with a .429 average. After being retired in the first inning of the Furman win, Drumheller doubled in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth innings. That was part of a week in which he went 12-for-22 (.545) with six RBIs, six runs and six doubles.
FACING TOUGH COMPETITION
App State has played five games against three Power Five foes with top-30 rankings: Tennessee (17-1), South Carolina (14-3) and Miami (14-3). Wake Forest, FAU and Gardner-Webb also have winning records.
TAKING THE MOUND
Will Sprinkle, who ranked second on the team with a 2.96 ERA last season, is the probable Game 1 starter. He had a 2-1 record in his five Sun Belt starts last season with road wins against ULM (4-1) and UTA (6-4). He left with a lead with two away in the fifth inning of an 11-7 victory against Coastal Carolina.
In his last start, Sprinkle recorded a career-high nine strikeouts against Furman and allowed three earned runs on seven hits in 6.2 innings. He took a no-hitter into the sixth inning of a 5-2 win against Manhattan and finished with two runs allowed (one earned) on two hits over seven innings. During opening weekend at Tennessee, Sprinkle held the Volunteers' offense in check through five innings, allowing a single run on a third-inning sacrifice fly.
Left-handed freshman
Tyler Tuthill is the projected Game 2 starter this weekend. He improved to 3-1 last Sunday by allowing one hit in five scoreless innings against Furman before four relievers allowed no hits over the last four innings.
In the start before that, Tuthill allowed no runs and just one hit through the first five innings of a 24-3 win against Gardner-Webb. He picked up his first career win by allowing three earned runs in six innings and striking out six batters in a 14-5 victory vs. Manhattan. In his college debut at Tennessee, Tuthill finished with five strikeouts and one run allowed on two hits in four innings.
Cameron Kepley, the projected Game 3 starter, has 13 strikeouts over 15.2 innings in four starts this season. He allowed three runs on four hits while striking out four batters in six innings at Tennessee to open this season. Kepley made two starts as a freshman in 2018 and had 29 strikeouts in 27.2 innings.
