CONWAY, S.C. — Joel McDaniel's first-inning grand slam ignited a hot start. By game's end, Appalachian State players had more reasons to exit the dugout and exchange high-fives.
App State clinched its first-ever Sun Belt Conference Championship berth and set a program record for runs in a Sun Belt game with an 18-6 victory at Coastal Carolina on Friday night.
McDaniel's grand slam produced a 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning, and the Mountaineers were clinging to a 6-5 lead in the third when reliever
Kaleb Bowman induced an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. Bowman followed that effort with four consecutive scoreless innings in a career-long outing, giving his offense ample time to again gain separation from the Chanticleers.
App State followed the 6-4-3 double play started by shortstop
Luke Allison with two runs in the top of the fourth inning, and
Phillip Cole's three-run homer to left-center gave the Mountaineers an 11-5 lead in the fifth.
Leading 13-5 in the seventh, McDaniel delivered his second homer of the game with a 406-foot blast that punctuated a 3-for-3 night with five RBIs and five runs scored, and
Riley Smith made it back-to-back homers with a solo shot to left.
With its regular-season finale set for Saturday at 2 p.m., App State (22-29, 13-15) is currently alone at No. 9 in the 12-team Sun Belt, which has a 10-team tournament that begins Tuesday in Conway. The Mountaineers are locked into a single-elimination game between the 8/9 seeds on Tuesday, likely at 6:30 p.m., with Louisiana (currently No. 8 at 14-15, with a chance to fall to No. 9) or Coastal (currently No. 6 at 14-13, with a chance to fall to No. 8) being the only options as a potential opponent.
Bowman improved to 6-1 this season with his stellar relief effort, which included one hit allowed and four strikeouts in 4.2 innings. With
Brandon Boone starting on the mound, Coastal entered the eighth inning with only three hits in the game, and App State got an inning apiece from
Jack Hartman and
Andrew Papp to close the victory.
Offensively, in its fifth Sun Belt season, App State had never scored more than 13 runs in a league game.
Luke Drumheller and
Tyler Leek also posted three hits Friday, Cole finished with four RBIs and Smith scored three times. Leek, Drumheller,
Kendall McGowan and Cole scored two times apiece.
Leek opened the game with a single off Austin Kitchen and reached second on a fielding error. He scored on Drumheller's one-out single, and Drumheller moved to second on McGowan's single before advancing to third on a walk to Cole. McDaniel homered on a 2-0 fastball to put App State in position for a bounce-back performance following its 19-3 loss in the series opener.
Coastal responded immediately with two runs thanks to a leadoff walk, a bunt single with a run-scoring error, a groundout and a sac fly in the bottom of the first. Leek's leadoff double in the second helped him score on a two-out infield single by Cole, and the Chants scored once in a high-energy bottom half of the second that ended with a Boone strikeout stranding two runners.
Coastal threatened to pull even by drawing back-to-back walks and then getting hit by a one-out pitch in the third. Bowman took the mound to face Zach Biermann, who hit a two-run single, but Bowman followed a walk that reloaded the bases with the big double-play groundout turned by Allison, Drumheller and
Robbie Young.
The Mountaineers' second offensive push occurred after the Chants retired App State's first two batters in the fourth. Walks to McDaniel and Smith set up Young's RBI single, and a walk to Allison preceded a pitching change. Leek earned an RBI by being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Appalachian broke the game open with its five-run fifth, which included singles by Drumheller and McGowan to set the stage for Cole's homer. Smith's sacrifice fly and Leek's RBI single pushed the lead to 13-5.
App State Baseball would like to thank AutoStar Nissan of Boone for serving as the presenting sponsor of the 2019 season.
