BOONE, N.C. — Senior shortstop
Bailey Welch reached first with a single and, replaced by a pinch-runner, received an ovation as teammates left the dugout to greet him following his final at-bat on Beaver Field in Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.
There's a lot to celebrate in advance of the postseason and plenty of work ahead as the Mountaineers prepare for their trip to Montgomery, Ala.
A winning record and its best finish in the Sun Belt regular-season baseball standings secured, App State closed its 2021 home schedule with a series victory against East Division champion South Alabama.
After taking the first two games by scores of 6-4 and 4-2, the Mountaineers ended the regular season with a 13-3 loss to the Jaguars on Saturday. Following the final out, team members and coaches acknowledged the standing crowd and thanked them for their support during what's been a unique 14 months.
App State went 11-10 in Sun Belt play to earn the No. 4 seed from the difficult East Division and post the sixth-best record in the 12-team league. It is scheduled to open next week's tournament in Riverwalk Stadium on Tuesday night against West Division's No. 6 seed Texas State (in the fourth game of the day at approximately 8:30 p.m. ET) and then play West Division No. 1 seed Louisiana on Thursday night (in the last of three games at approximately 8 p.m. ET).
All 12 teams qualify for the event, with four "pool" groups of three teams apiece and each team playing a minimum of two games (against the other two teams in its pool). Semifinalists will emerge from pool play that run Tuesday-Friday, and the highest seed in a pool would win the tiebreaker if all three teams went 1-1.
In Sunday's regular-season finale in Boone,
Hayden Cross hit his first career homer and
Luke Drumheller scored on an RBI triple from
Kendall McGowan, who then came home on a sacrifice fly from
Robbie Young. Defensively, center fielder
Alex Leshock made a leaping catch as he ran back toward the wall to rob Ethan Wilson of a hit.
Two-way players
Andrew Terrell, who started at third base, and right fielder
Phillip Cole, who started in right field, pitched one scoreless inning apiece to close the game. Cole struck out all three batters he faced in the seventh inning, with Terrell moving to his third position of the day by playing right field.
South Alabama led 3-2 after one inning, added three runs in the top of the second and, following a scoreless third inning from
Cam Roberts, scored two more runs in the fourth.
