BOONE, N.C. – App State Baseball will travel across the state, to Chapel Hill, to face off with the North Carolina Tar Heels Tuesday at 6 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the ACC Network Extra.
SCOUTING APP STATE: The Mountaineers (7-11, 1-2) took one of three this weekend against Georgia Southern, winning the series finale 11-6 on Sunday. App State tallied 11 hits at the plate, including home runs from
Phillip Cole and
Austin St. Laurent. On the mound, Mountaineer pitching recorded 14 strikeouts in the ballgame.
Trey Tujetsch earned the win on Sunday, recording a career-high nine strikeouts over six innings of work. That followed a 10-strikeout performance form
Xander Hamilton over seven innings on Saturday.
Alex Aguila led the Mountaineers at the plate with a career-high four hits on Sunday.
SCOUTING NORTH CAROLINA: The Tar Heels are ranked 13
th in the nation by D1 Baseball after beginning the season 17-3, and 5-1 in ACC play following a series win over Duke. The UNC pitching staff has been outstanding, boasting a team ERA of 2.07, and they've allowed more than three runs in just three games this season. Lefty Will Sandy, who will face the Mountaineers Tuesday, has allowed just one run over six innings this season.
At the plate, Vance Honeycutt has excelled across the board, leading the team with eight home runs, while reaching base at a .418 clip. He has also stolen 14 bases in 15 attempts so far this season. Johnny Castagnozzi has added six home runs and holds a 1.273 OPS on the year. He and Angel Zarate are both batting over.400 through 20 games this season.
ON THE BUMP:
App State RHP
Jason Cornatzer (0-0, 6.43) vs UNC LHP Will Sandy (0-0, 1.50)
SERIES HISTORY: The Mountaineers are 3-26 all-time against the Tar Heels, in an all-time series that dates back to 1974. The teams are facing off for the first time since 2018, when the Mountaineers went toe-to-toe with the then 12
th ranked Tar Heels, leading the game 1-0 after four innings, before eventually falling, 4-1. App State out-hit UNC 7-6 in that contest.
LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S 2012: App State Baseball honored the 10
th anniversary of the 2012 team this past weekend as they host players from that historic tournament run for a bunch on Saturday morning, ahead of game two against Georgia Southern. The 2012 team claimed the Southern Conference regular-season title and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1986, beating Oklahoma and Virginia in the regional round. They came within one win of a Super Regional berth, finishing the season with a record of 41-18. Not only did they set the programs wins record that season, but they defeated four ranked opponents, including back-to-back wins over No. 7 LSU.
RACKIN' UP THE K's: In five starts for the Mountaineers this season,
Xander Hamilton has overpowered opposing hitters, striking out at least nine batters in each outing, and has totaled 51 strikeouts on the season, which leads Sun Belt pitchers, and ranks tied for second in the nation. He also ranks second in the conference in innings pitched (30.2). In contrast, he has walked only nine batters this season. Hamilton has fanned 13 more batters than any other pitcher in the Sun Belt Conference.
GET OUT THE TAPE MEASURE: Phillip Cole jump-started the Mountaineers offense with a second inning home run on Sunday. The long ball was measured at 459 feet, the longest recorded by an App State batter in the Trackman era. It left the bat at 107 miles-per-hour. The homer was Cole's first of the season and eighth of his career. Later in the game,
Austin St. Laurent launched his first home run as a Mountaineer which traveled 427 feet and left the bat at 102 miles-per-hour.
BABIP SKID: Prior to Sunday's win, the Mountaineers lost three consecutive games, in part, due to some bad hitting luck. Over the three-game losing streak, the Mountaineers struck out just ten times combined, but scored only ten runs over that span. That adds up to BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of .241, which is about 60 points lower than baseball's average. In their 5-2 loss on Saturday, App State struck out only once in the ballgame, but grounded out 14 times. App State was able to reverse that trend in the finale on Sunday, scoring 11 runs, while still striking out just six times as a team.
BUILDING BLOCKS: Under the direction of
Kermit Smith, App State went 11-10 in Sun Belt Conference regular season games last season to post the sixth-best record in the 12-team league. It was the program's first winning record and best Sun Belt finish since joining the league in 2015. The Mountaineers also earned their first-ever Sun Belt tourney win with a 1-0 victory against Texas State.
With the Sun Belt ranking as a top-10 league (out of 31 Division I conferences) in each of Smith's first five seasons, the Mountaineers are 33-35 in their last 68 Sun Belt regular season games after winning nine times in 45 Sun Belt regular season games during Smith's first year-and-a-half of rebuilding.
NEXT UP: The Mountaineers will travel to Arkansas to face Little Rock in the first road series of conference play. Friday and Saturday's games are scheduled for 7 p.m. ET with the finale on Sunday set for 1 p.m. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+.
