TROY, Ala. — Appalachian State built a lead in support of
Brandon Boone, and
Andrew Papp shut down a comeback attempt before the Mountaineers added some needed insurance in a clutch road win.
App State closed its Sun Belt Conference series at Troy with a 9-7 victory on Saturday afternoon. The Mountaineers improved to 8-9 in league play and 16-21 overall heading into a Tuesday home game against Radford.
Troy (21-19, 9-9) cut into an 8-3 deficit with a four-run bottom of the eighth, which ended with the tying run stranded at third on a popout to first.
Luke Allison came through with a two-out RBI single to score
Robbie Young from second in the top of the ninth, and relief pitcher
Kaleb Bowman followed a difficult eighth inning with a perfect ninth.
Young went to the opposite field on his first career homer to supply one highlight for an offense that totaled 13 hits, including two apiece from Young,
Alex Leshock and
Tyler Leek.
The Mountaineers used a three-run fifth to break a 2-2 tie and led 5-2 going to the bottom of the sixth inning thanks to a strong start from Boone, who struck out a career-high-tying seven batters and gave up no earned runs in his first five innings of work.
A one-out homer, single and double in the bottom of the sixth led Papp to replace Boone (4-2) with two runners in scoring position. Appalachian maintained its two-run advantage as Papp induced a popout to short and a hard grounder to Young, who flipped to Papp covering first. Rigsby Mosley was out on a bang-bang play at the bag.
Appalachian turned a 5-3 lead into an 8-3 advantage with a three-run top of the eighth, as Leshock scored all the way from first base on a failed pickoff that included throwing errors to first and third. Back-to-back RBI doubles from
Kendall McGowan and
Joel McDaniel provided a five-run cushion.
The Mountaineers maintained the lead even though Mosley hit a one-out triple with the bases loaded and scored on an RBI groundout in the eighth. A two-out double and a wild pitch put the tying run 90 feet from home, but Bowman retired Sadler Goodwin on his popout to first.
Troy took advantage of a throwing error to score an unearned run in the first, and App State tied the game when Leek scored on Leshock's two-out single in the second. Young's leadoff homer in the fourth broke a 1-1 tie before an error while attempting to erase the lead runner on a sac bunt contributed to an unearned run for the Trojans.
Appalachian took the lead for good with its three-run fifth, starting with a one-out walk to McDaniel and
Dalton Williams' RBI double to deep right. Williams scored on Leek's single up the middle, and
Riley Smith followed a Young single with an RBI double to deep left.
App State improved to 3-1 in Game 3 conference starts from Boone, who allowed three runs (one earned) on eight hits in 5.1 innings. He had six strikeouts through three innings and seven Ks through four innings.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
