BOONE, N.C. — Luke Drumheller,
Robbie Young and
Joel McDaniel all homered for Appalachian State, but Radford used a six-run top of the first inning and five homers of its own to claim a 12-6 road win Tuesday night.
The Mountaineers (16-22, 8-9 Sun Belt) will resume their league schedule Friday with the start of a three-game home series against first-place UTA (28-14, 14-4).
Drumheller's second homer of his freshman season was part of a 2-for-4 game that raised his league-leading batting average to .383, McDaniel hit his team-leading sixth homer of the season and Young homered for the second straight game. He came close to adding a two-run homer that would have cut App State's eighth-inning deficit to 11-8, but left fielder Adam Whitacre reached up above the top of the wall to make the catch.
App State's offense also benefited from a 2-for-4 outing by
Kendall McGowan, who had three RBIs, and
Bailey Welch scored the Mountaineers' first two runs after reaching on a walk and triple.
Radford, which is tied for second place in the Big South, got two homers from Clayton Baine and one homer apiece from Spencer Horowitz, Andrew Szamski and Will Harless.
Horowitz followed a single to open the game with a two-run homer to right off App State starter
Cameron Kepley, who then followed a walk to back-to-back strikeouts. He was close to getting out of the inning with limited damage, but Harless' hard-hit grounder with an exit velocity of 105 mph snuck past an on-the-move infielder's glove.
With runners on the corners for new pitcher
Jason Cornatzer, two runs scored on a two-out fielding error before Baine delivered a two-run homer.
The Highlanders (21-19, 12-6 Big South) led 10-2 through four innings, with App State's early runs coming on McGowan's RBI single in the first inning and his third-inning sacrifice fly. The Mountaineers trimmed their deficit to 10-5 on Drumheller's fifth-inning homer to right with a 101-mph exit velocity, Young's 398-foot homer to right in the seventh and McGowan's RBI single to score
Alex Leshock later in the same inning.
After Radford scored an unearned run in the top of the eighth inning, McDaniel led off the bottom of the eighth with a homer that had an exit velocity of 103 mph, according to the
@AppStSportsData account.
App State used seven pitchers on a staff day, and
Austin Primm finished with two strikeouts in 2.1 scoreless innings of relief.
Jack Hartman took over for Primm and pitched a clean seventh inning.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
