BOONE, N.C. - App State baseball heads to Durham for its first midweek game of the season to battle No. 23 Duke on Tuesday at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
First pitch between the Mountaineers and the Blue Devils is scheduled for 4 p.m. The matchup will be aired on ACCNX.
Live results can be accessed HERE.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS:
App State (2-1) enters Tuesday coming off of a series win at Campbell to open the 2022 season. App State silenced the Fighting Camels 5-1 on Saturday and 5-4 on Sunday, bouncing back from a 9-0 Opening Day defeat.
Entering the weekend, Campbell was ranked top-30 in both the Collegiate Baseball and Perfect Game USA preseason polls.
App State 5, Campbell 4 (SUNDAY)
On Sunday, Hunter Bryson's eighth-inning, two-run shot lifted App State to its eventual 5-4 victory, answering Campbell's trio of runs in the bottom of the seventh that took a 4-3 advantage. Andrew Greckel threw out a Fighting Camel baserunner at the plate to keep Campbell's lead at one heading into the eighth before Bryson's big fly.
In the bottom of the ninth, Campbell was able to put the tying run on second and the winning run on first with Zach Neto (D1Baseball's No. 3 SS) up at the plate, but Trey Jernigan sealed the series win for the Mountaineers with a final strikeout.
App State tallied double digit hits on Sunday, 10, for the first time this season, out hitting a squad that advanced to a NCAA regional final last season in both game two and game three action.
The Mountaineers plated its own trio of runs in the fifth courtesy of a RBI-single from Luke Drumheller and Dylan Rogers.
Rogers finished 3-for-5 up at the plate to go along with his RBI. Preseason All-Sun Belt Drumheller finished 2-for-4, an RBI and a run scored, and Andrew Terrell went 2-for-4 also scoring a run. Terrell leads the Mountaineers through three games with a team-high batting average of .273.
App State 5, Campbell 1 (SATURDAY)
On Saturday, Virginia Tech transfer and starting right-handed pitcher Xander Hamilton made his pitching debut for App State, holding a top-30 team to a single hit and no runs allowed through 6.1 innings of work.
Hamilton finished his outing with 10 strikeouts, tying the second most by an App State pitcher since 2013, in his win. He also held a no-hitter through five complete before surrendering his lone hit to none other than the 2021 and 2022 Preseason Big South Player of the Year in Zach Neto.
Eli Ellington entered the contest in relief of Hamilton and continued to keep the Camels at bay. Ellington tossed 2.2 innings, allowing a single run on one hit and struck out five.Hamilton and Ellington combined for 15 strikeouts and only two hits allowed. Fifteen strikeouts as a pitching staff marked the third most since 2013. App State was four strikeouts shy of a single game record.
For the weekend, the Mountaineer stable held Campbell to a .182 batting average, tallying 34 strikeouts and only 16 hits allowed.
App State @ No. 23 Duke
Entering Tuesday's midweek contest, App State trails in the all-time series meeting against Duke 3-4 dating back to 1974. App State won the last meeting 6-4 back in 2012 in Durham.
In 2012, current Duke head coach Chris Pollard was then head coach of the Mountaineers, winning a school record 41 games en route to a 2012 SoCon regular season crown, earning an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament and one win away from a NCAA Super Regional.
Pollard coached the Mountaineers from 2005-2012, holding a 244-210-2 record before taking the reins of the Blue Devils.
The Mountaineers' last ranked win came by the way of an 11-9 victory over No. 24 Wake Forest back in 2020 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
SCOUTING THE BLUE DEVILS:
Duke (2-1) enters Tuesday with back-to-back wins over the Virginia Military Institute, 9-1 and 8-7, to also capture its opening weekend series.
After the opening weekend of play, Duke currently holds steady at No. 23 overall in D1Baseball's top 25. The Blue Devils are one of six ACC squads to be currently ranked in the top 25.
Graduate student Chris Crabtree finished 2-for-3 with three RBIs to lead the Blue Devils to an 8-7 victory Sunday, clinching the series. Crabtree's 2-for-3 effort was highlighted by his first home run of the season, a 435-foot, two-run shot.
In 2021, Duke finished 33-22 overall and 16-17 in the ACC en route to winning the ACC Tournament with a 1-0 victory over No. 16 N.C. State, winning the program's fourth ACC baseball title and first in 60 seasons. Duke would end its historic run by going 1-2 in the Knoxville Regional.
For 2022, the Blue Devils were picked to finish fourth in the ACC Coastal Division.
Duke welcomed a newcomer class of 12 freshmen and four graduate transfers. The class was tabbed ninth overall by Baseball America, marking it the highest ranked class in Duke history. Freshmen Alex Mooney, Jonathan Santucci and Devin Obee each rank in the top-50 freshmen nationally by Perfect Game. The Blue Devils were the lone school in the rankings with two players in the top 10 and three players in the top 50.
While the Blue Devil offense features new faces this season, Duke's pitching staff remains largely intact with pen experience on top of adding multiple arms to the 2022 roster. Duke returned over 75 percent of its pitching statistics from a season ago.
Through three games, three Blue Devils are hitting over .300, Chad Knight (.400), Graham Pauley (.385) and Alex Mooney (.308). As a team, Duke is hitting .282 with 10 doubles and three home runs.
Junior right-hander Marcus Johnson and senior outfielder Schreck both earned preseason All-America honors heading into the 2022 campaign. Johnson was named to the Perfect Game Second Team and D1Baseball Third Team. Johnson ranked tied for third in the ACC last season with a 3.05 ERA and tallied a team-leading five wins,
Schreck earned Third Team honors from Collegiate Baseball as he jumped onto the scene for Duke in 2021. He is the program's lone returner in the outfield, boasting a .337 batting average with 18 home runs and 52 RBIs in 2021. His 18 home runs ranked fourth all-time by a Blue Devil in a single season.
The 2022 App State baseball season is presented by Chick-fil-A.
