BOONE, N.C. — With two weekends left in the Sun Belt regular season, Appalachian State and South Alabama are part of a five-way logjam in the East Division.
App State (21-24, 12-11 Sun Belt) and Coastal Carolina enter Friday trailing division-leading Georgia Southern (13-11) by a half-game, while South Alabama (26-22, 12-12 Sun Belt) and Troy are one game out of first in the division.Based on weather forecasts for the weekend, the schedule is subject to change, but the App State-South Alabama series is currently scheduled to begin Friday at 6 p.m. All games will be shown live on AppVision.
App State is excited to announce that, on Friday and Saturday, Smith Stadium will unveil a beer garden with Booneshine beer available for purchase.
This weekend's series is a matchup of team ERAs that rank No. 4 (South Alabama, 4.70) and No. 6 (App State, 4.87) in the league. Three of the league's top six individual (qualifying) ERAs belong to App State in Kaleb Bowman (No. 2, 3.26), Brandon Boone (No. 4, 3.31) and Tyler Tuthill (No. 6, 3.51). Bowman's ERA is No. 8 nationally among pitchers with at least 23 appearances, and Andrew Papp (3.28) is No. 9 in that group.
Jason Cornatzer is the probable Game 1 starter for App State, followed by Tuthill in Game 2 and Boone in Game 3.
South Alabama pitchers will face a lineup that includes Sun Belt batting leader Luke Drumheller, whose .366 average is No. 6 nationally among D1 freshmen, and Joel McDaniel (.360 average in league play).
South Alabama won the first meeting in 1973 and is 9-3 against App State since it joined the Sun Belt, which is currently ranked No. 9 among the nation's 31 Division I leagues.
SIZING UP THE SUN BELT
App State is tied for fifth in its 12-team league with a program-best Sun Belt record of 12-11. In its first four years in the Sun Belt, App State had two 9-21 records (2018, 2016) and two 8-22 records (2017, 2015).
Since the midway point of last season, the Mountaineers' league record of 20-18 ranks fifth in the Sun Belt behind just Texas State (25-14), Coastal Carolina (23-15), Georgia Southern (23-16) and Troy (23-16).
App State went 8-7 over the last half of its league schedule in 2018, and the home sweep of UTA in late April produced an 11-9 mark that put the Mountaineers above .500 in league play for the first time as a Sun Belt program. The Mountaineers went 9-5 this year against the five teams from the West Division.
Going back to the midway point of 2018, App State is also the only Sun Belt program to have won at least one game in each of its last 13 league series. Every other Sun Belt team has had a winless weekend.
RECOGNIZING APP STATE'S SENIORS
A senior day and graduation ceremony is currently scheduled for Sunday, and App State's roster includes seven seniors: Drew Beck, Brandon Boone, Kaleb Bowman, CJ Brown, Bobby Hampton, Joel McDaniel and Riley Smith. Another player, redshirt junior Luke Allison, is on pace to earn his degree this spring.
The actual home finale is a Tuesday midweek game against UNC Asheville.
GRADING OUT WELL
App State has posted a perfect single-year APR score of 1,000 for the first time.
The NCAA released APR data for the 2017-18 academic year this week, and third-year coach Kermit Smith's program was one of a record-breaking 14 varsity teams from App State with a perfect single-year score from 2017-18.
It was the first score of 1,000 for App State Baseball since the APR began being documented for the 2004-05 year and the only 1,000 from a Sun Belt baseball program for the 2017-18 cycle.
The Mountaineers have posted a team GPA of better than 3.0 in two of the last three semesters after last reaching that mark in the fall of 2010. In the 2018-19 fall semester, Appalachian State had a 3.07 GPA, with 23 players surpassing a 3.0.
BEATING THE DRUM
Freshman infielder Luke Drumheller leads the Sun Belt in average (.366, No. 77 nationally) while also ranking third in hits per game (1.40) and sixth in doubles (14). He leads the team with 35 RBIs.
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.
* Bowman's fingerprints are all over App State's wins this season, as he is 5-0 with four saves and a 3.26 ERA (No. 2 Sun Belt) in 23 appearances.
After picking up the victory in last weekend's series finale at Arkansas State, Bowman is 3-0 with three saves and a 3.46 ERA in league play for a 12-11 team.
At the halfway point of the Sun Belt schedule, Bowman had a league-best 1.46 ERA that ranked No. 2 nationally among pitchers with at least 17 appearances. He had a 0.48 ERA in eight Sun Belt appearances before pitching twice against Troy, throwing the final two innings of a 9-7 win in that series finale and also pitching 2.1 innings in a sweep-ending win against UTA.
Bowman totaled 5.2 scoreless innings and ran 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.
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.
* Papp has a 3.28 ERA in 23 appearances with six saves, a 1-1 record and 39 strikeouts in 35.2 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 2.60 ERA this season.
Papp earned the save in the Arkansas State finale last weekend, also earned a save in App State's last midweek game and pitched 2.1 innings of scoreless relief in two appearances during the UTA series, including a four-out save in Game 2.
He entered the finale at Troy in the sixth inning with a 5-3 lead, one out and two runners in scoring position. He retired the next two batters without allowing a run and had two strikeouts while stranding a runner on second in the seventh.
Earlier this year, Papp struck out the side in a perfect inning at South Carolina and had two strikeouts while recording a save in a perfect ninth inning at FAU. He also picked up a save with a scoreless ninth inning against Michigan State.
KEEPING UP WITH KENDALL
Sophomore Kendall McGowan has raised his season average to .295 (tied for third on the team) and ranks among the team leaders in steals (nine, tied for first), triples (four, tied for the league lead), RBIs (31, second on the team), hits (46, second), homers (five, second) and runs scored (24, tied for second).
His is also second on the team with 13 multi-hit games (all in his last 31 games).
TAKING A CLOSER PEEK AT LEEK
Tyler Leek, a newcomer from North Greenville, homered in back-to-back wins against UTA and had the go-ahead hit in the eighth inning of a comeback win at Arkansas State last Sunday. He leads the team with 28 runs scored even though he's had only 95 official at-bats (tied for 10th on the team). He also homered in back-to-back games during the Georgia Southern series.
Not factoring in a fielder's choice or error, he has reached base via a hit (counting homers), walk or hit by pitch 39 times, so Leek is scoring at a very high rate.
