LAFAYETTE, La. — Appalachian State Baseball began its first Sun Belt Conference road series with a dramatic comeback against the Ragin' Cajuns.
Trailing by two runs entering the seventh inning at Louisiana, App State scored once in each of its final three at-bats to claim a 6-5 victory Friday night before a crowd of 4,779 fans at Russo Park.
Luke Drumheller scored the tiebreaking run on
Bailey Welch's RBI fielder's choice with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth inning, and
Andrew Papp recorded his third save by retiring three of the four batters he faced in the bottom of the ninth. He followed a strikeout with a one-out walk, then induced a flyout to
Kendall McGowan in left and ended the game with a strikeout on an 0-2 pitch.
Kaleb Bowman, who struck out two batters and allowed one hit in three scoreless innings, improved to 2-0 as App State (9-11, 2-2) won for the first time this season when trailing after six or seven innings. Louisiana, the Sun Belt's preseason West Division favorite, fell to 10-13 overall and 2-2 in the league.
Behind 5-3 to open the seventh, the Mountaineers got a leadoff walk from pinch-hitter
Phillip Cole, a sacrifice bunt from
Tyler Leek and an RBI triple from
Luke Allison. Two runners were stranded, but Bowman retired the side in order in the bottom half of the inning, and McGowan stole second after drawing a one-out walk in the eighth. He moved to third on Welch's single and scored the tying run on Cole's RBI single to right.
A strikeout with the bases loaded prevented App State from taking the lead, but Bowman ended a perfect eighth with a strikeout, and Drumheller led off the ninth with his second hit of the night. He advanced to second on
Riley Smith's bunt single, and McGowan's one-out single loaded the bases for Welch.
Drumheller raced home when a high chopper to third resulted in a forceout at second, and Welch beat the double-play throw with a head-first slide into the bag.
Drumheller (2-for-5, two runs), McGowan (2-for-4) and Allison (2-for-3) accounted for six of App State's 10 hits, and the Mountaineers limited Louisiana to seven. Starting pitcher
Will Sprinkle gave up four runs in five innings before being relieved by
Jason Cornatzer, and the tandem of Bowman and Papp retired 12 of the 14 batters they faced.
Dalton Williams led App State with two RBIs, driving in runs with a first-inning groundout and a sixth-inning single. Before that hit, Louisiana held a 4-1 lead thanks to a two-run bottom of the first, Todd Lott's solo homer in the third and Hayden Cantrelle's solo homer in the fifth.
After
Alex Leshock scored on Williams' sixth-inning single, McGowan hit an RBI single to bring App State within 4-3, and Louisiana added an unearned run in its half of the sixth.
The three-game series resumes Saturday at 3 p.m. ET.
Tyler Tuthill is App State's probable starter on the mound.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
