TROY, Ala. — Looking to build on a season's worth of Sun Belt Conference progress and improvement, Appalachian State (15-19, 7-7) begins a three-game series at Troy (19-18, 7-8) on Thursday. The road series continues Friday and ends Saturday in advance of Easter Sunday.
The game times are 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 2 p.m. ET.
Each year's Sun Belt schedule includes 30 conference games, and in the last calendar year, App State is 15-14 in league play. In that time, the Mountaineers have the sixth-best record in the 11-team league, topped only by Coastal Carolina (19-10), Georgia Southern/Troy/Louisiana (18-12) and Texas State (17-13).
App State went 8-7 to finish its 2018 league schedule and is 7-7 in 2019 to reach .500 in the Sun Belt for the first time ever after March. The Mountaineers went 2-0 last weekend vs. ULM, and inclement weather canceled Game 3.
Third-place Appalachian is currently just one game behind East Division leader Coastal Carolina and half a game behind Georgia Southern.
ESPN+ will show
all three games at Troy, and audio will be available on www.troytrojans.com by
clicking HERE.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
SIZING UP THE SERIES
Freshman
Luke Drumheller leads the league in hitting (.395) after five of 10 Sun Belt series, and reliever
Kaleb Bowman leads the league in ERA (1.46). Weekend starters
Brandon Boone (3.53 ERA) and
Tyler Tuthill (3.59 ERA) are also in the top 10 by ranking seventh and ninth, respectively, in the league.
Bowman's ERA ranks No. 2 nationally among pitchers with at least 17 appearances, behind just a 1.40 ERA from San Diego State's Adrian Mardueno, and Drumheller's average is No. 2 nationally among freshmen behind just the .443 mark from UIC catcher Ryan Hampe, who has played in only 23 games.
Kermit Smith picked up his 500th win as a college head coach last year in the series opener against Troy, which took two of three games in Boone and has a 9-3 record in their four sets of Sun Belt showdowns. The Trojans, who won an NCAA Regional game last year as an at-large entry, have three straight series wins with 2-1 records vs. Georgia State (last weekend), Texas State (April 5-6) and Louisiana (March 29-31).
BEATING THE DRUM
Freshman infielder
Luke Drumheller, who has hit safely in 26 of his last 28 games, leads the Sun Belt in average (.395, No. 37 nationally) while also ranking second in hits per game (1.53, No. 41 nationally), second in doubles (13, No. 52 nationally) and eighth in RBIs (32, or third in the league at 1.0 per game).
Drumheller broke a school and Sun Belt record on March 10 with a five-double game, which was voted the national Performance of the Week by the Golden Spikes Award. He became just the seventh Division I player to hit five doubles in a game and the first since Western Carolina's Aaron Attaway in 2012.
CALLING ON KALEB
Senior
Kaleb Bowman's fingerprints are all over App State's wins this season, as he is 4-0 with four saves and a league-leading 1.46 ERA in 17 appearances.
The second-best overall ERA for qualifying Sun Belt Conference pitchers is 2.67, and Bowman's ERA of 0.48 in eight league appearances also leads the Sun Belt, with a 1.08 mark ranking second in conference play.
Bowman totaled 5.2 scoreless innings last week and increased his streak of consecutive scoreless innings to 12.0 by picking up back-to-back saves against ULM after he improved to 6-0 in his two-year Appalachian State career with 2.2 scoreless innings in an 8-2 victory at UNC Asheville. The Bulldogs had a 2-0 lead and two runners in scoring position when Bowman took the mound in the second inning, and App State scored seven two-out runs in the third.
Bowman threw a combined five innings of scoreless relief as he picked up two wins in the series at Louisiana. He had five strikeouts over three innings in a victory at FAU and earned his first win of the season against Michigan State by striking out four batters over four scoreless innings.
SCOUTING THE PROBABLE STARTING PITCHERS
GAME 1: WILL SPRINKLE
Sprinkle, who ranked No. 2 on the team last season with a 2.96 ERA, has made some minor tweaks and returned to form in his last two starts.
Perfect through five innings vs. Georgia Southern, Sprinkle allowed two runs in a career-high-tying seven innings vs. ULM, when he struck out five batters and allowed just four hits: a bunt single that preceded a homer that snuck inside the right-field pole, a check-swing bloop single over an infielder's head and an infield single between the mound and first base.
In the Georgia Southern game, Sprinkle had five strikeouts during his five perfect innings and was in position to get out of a three-run sixth with just one run allowed, but a two-out ball hit directly into the defensive shift instead ricocheted off an umpire for an inning-prolonging RBI single.
GAME 2: TYLER TUTHILL
Named the league's No. 2 impact freshman by D1Baseball in the preseason, Tuthill is tied for No. 2 in the Sun Belt in victories (five) and tied for No. 5 nationally among Division I freshmen in that category.
Tuthill is No. 9 among Sun Belt pitchers in ERA (3.59), No. 7 in opposing batting average (.218) and No. 7 in innings pitched (52.2).
NCAA freshman pitcher wins leaders
7: Hayes Heinecke (Wofford), JT Ginn (Mississippi State)
6: Ben Abram (Oklahoma), Sam Stoutenborough (Cal)
5:
Tyler Tuthill (App State) and others
Tuthill took the mound in the eighth inning vs. ULM with just four hits and three runs allowed, and that effort followed a win in which he allowed two hits and one run (unearned) in 6.0 innings against Georgia Southern.
GAME 3: BRANDON BOONE
App State went 2-0 in the first two Sunday starts in league play from Boone, the midweek starter for all of 2018 and the first part of this year.
Seventh in the Sun Belt in ERA (3.53), Boone has 89 strikeouts in 86.0 innings since joining the program before the 2018 season. Of App State's six shutouts in the last two seasons, he has started four of them.
Boone finished with five strikeouts and four runs allowed in five innings of a win against Louisiana and pitched five shutout innings with a career-high-tying seven strikeouts in a 3-0 victory against Texas State. He allowed three runs in 5.1 innings against Georgia Southern, and Game 3 of the ULM series was suspended by third-inning fog and later canceled.
KEEPING UP WITH KENDALL
In Sun Belt games, sophomore outfielder
Kendall McGowan ranks No. 8 in the league with a .368 batting average, which has helped his season-long average rise to .300. In his last seven games, he's 13-for-29 (.448) with five runs scored.
Because of lower-body injuries in 2018, McGowan (successfully) attempted just one steal last season. After stealing 22 bases over the summer while playing in the Coastal Plain League, he has nine steals already this season.
ASSESSING THE BULLPEN
App State moved forward without 2018 closer
Luke Watts, who had a team-leading 2.29 ERA in 30 appearances, but the Mountaineers brought back standout right-handers
Kaleb Bowman and
Andrew Papp.
Papp has a 4.08 ERA in 17 appearances with three saves, a 1-1 record and 32 strikeouts in 28.2 innings. Eliminating a rain-soaked eighth inning against ULM in which the two teams combined for 10 runs in difficult pitching conditions that led to a pair of lengthy delays, Papp has a 3.25 ERA this season.
The team's other relievers with double-digit appearances this season are
Jack Hartman (13 appearances, with 17 strikeouts in 13.1 IP),
Jason Cornatzer (11 appearances, with 18 strikeouts in 22.2 IP) and
Cam Roberts (10 appearances with 11 strikeouts in 13.2 IP).
