MONTGOMERY, Ala. — App State and Louisiana, both 1-0 in their three-team pool, will meet Thursday night with a berth in Saturday's semifinal round of the Sun Belt Championship at stake.
They will face off in the third game of the day at Riverwalk Stadium, with an approximate first-pitch time of 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. in Alabama). Each tournament game will be available on ESPN+.
Seeded No. 4 from the East Division, the Mountaineers (21-30 overall, 12-10 vs. league teams) earned their first-ever Sun Belt tourney win with a 1-0 victory against Texas State on Tuesday. West No. 1 seed Louisiana (31-22 overall, 13-11 in Sun Belt standings) won 12-6 against the Bobcats on Wednesday in a game that had no bearing on deciding a pool winner given the tiebreaker going to a higher seed with a 1-1 pool record.
In Sun Belt regular-season games, probable Thursday starters Tyler Tuthill (App State) and Connor Cooke (Louisiana) ranked second and third, respectively, with ERAs of 1.59 and 1.64. Tuthill's opposing batting average of .160 ranked second behind only the .146 average allowed by Cooke.
Tuthill (4-5, 2.87 overall ERA) threw six shutout innings against South Alabama last Thursday to open the final regular-season series. Cooke (7-3, 2.04 overall ERA) pitched a day later, allowing two runs and striking out seven batters in 7.2 innings against Troy.
In its Sun Belt Championship opener, the program's first 1-0 victory since a 2012 visit to No. 7 LSU ignited a 41-18 season that included two NCAA Regional victories, App State scored a sixth-inning run as Alex Leshock drew a 3-2 walk, Bailey Welch doubled and Luke Drumheller singled over the leaping second baseman. Quinton Martinez, Ben Peterson and Eli Ellington all pitched three scoreless innings while limiting the Bobcats to a combined four hits, with Ellington working around a one-out double in the top of the ninth inning and retiring nine of the 10 batters he faced.
App State improved to 2-14 vs. Texas State (with two straight wins) and is 6-10 in its history against Louisiana, with a road series victory against the Ragin' Cajuns in 2019 before they met in the Sun Belt Championship. Two years ago, Jason Cornatzer started App State's postseason debut as a Sun Belt program, and the Mountaineers tied the game in the fifth inning before losing 6-2 in a play-in matchup.
