MONTGOMERY, Ala.. – Following a one-run loss to Troy in the Sun Belt Tournament opener, the Mountaineers will look to fend off elimination Thursday as sixth-seeded App State faces off with seventh-seeded Coastal Carolina in the 2024 Guardian Credit Union Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championship presented by Troy University on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ and an audio broadcast will also be available on appstatesports.com.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS
App State enters Thursday 31-20-1 on the season and concluded Sun Belt play at 16-13-1. Despite being picked ninth in the Sun Belt preseason poll, the Mountaineers finished in sixth place in the conference standings and rank 76th nationally in RPI. App State will look to duplicate last year's path at the Sun Belt Tournament where the Mountaineers fended off elimination three times, defeating No. 16 Southern Miss to advance to a winner-take-all semifinal showdown. First team All-Conference selections
Banks Tolley and
Austin St. Laurent lead the Mountaineers at the plate. Tolley leads the league in home runs with 25, which is also an App State single-season record, and was named the Sun Belt newcomer of the year.
CJ Boyd has also hit 18 home runs this season and 35 for his career, cementing himself as the career home runs leader in App State program history.
SCOUTING THE CHANTICLEERS
Coastal enters the matchup 34-22 on the season and finished conference play at 16-14 despite enduring an eight-game losing streak midway through the season. The Chanticleers entered the week on the bubble for the NCAA tournament with an RPI of 31. They have picked up ranked wins this season over Campbell, Wake Forest and North Carolina. The Chanticleers opened the Sun Belt tournament by scoring five unanswered in the late innings to defeat Georgia State 5-1. Wednesday, they fell 5-0 to Southern Miss with the Golden Eagles scoring all five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Chanticleers were held to just three hits. Coastal is led by All-Conference third baseman Sam Antonacci who is batting .376 with a .535 on-base percentage.
SERIES HISTORY
App State and Coastal Carolina have met 32 times in program history, with the Chanticleers holding a 22-10 advantage in the all-time series. App won the regular season series in Boone over the 13th-ranked Chanticleers, marking the first series win over a top-15 opponent since the 2012 squad took two of three games from No. 7 LSU. The Mountaineers and Chanticleers have never faced one another in postseason play.
APP AT THE SBC
App State has won at least one game at the Sun Belt tournament in each of the last three seasons. Last year the Mountaineers staved off elimination three times, culminating with a victory over No. 16 Southern Miss to advance to a winner-take-all semifinal for the first time in program history. App State's lone conference tournament championship came as a SoCon member in 1984. The Mountaineers have also won six regular season titles, most recently in 2012 when they won a program-record 41 games and advanced to the Charlottesville, Va. regional.
LEATHERMEN
Through 52 games this season, the App State defense has committed just 44 errors in 1,817 chances for a team fielding percentage of .976, which is tied with Coastal Carolina for the best mark in the Sun Belt conference. App State has finished with a fielding percentage above .972 just twice in a season in program history. App State has played error-free baseball in 22 games this season and committed one error or fewer in 37 of 52 games.
BOMBS AWAY
App State has hit 93 home runs through 52 games this season, which ranks second in the Sun Belt and ranks 35th nationally. After hitting just 29 home runs as a team in 2022, App State has seen a major uptick in the power department the last two seasons, slugging 67 home runs in 2023. On Feb. 25 at Siena,
Banks Tolley,
Braxton Church, and
Drew Holderbach hit back-to-back-to-back home runs, marking the first time since April 14, 2017 against Georgia Southern that the Mountaineers had hit three consecutive long balls in a game. App State tied a Smith Stadium record by hitting five home runs in a ballgame, doing so twice this season, once against Queens on March 19 and once against Troy on April 13. It marks the third and fourth times in stadium history and the first time since 2008 that App State has gone deep five times in a game. With
Banks Tolley's home run in the regular season finale, the Mountaineers broke the program record of 90 home runs in a year which had stood since 1986. Overall, App State has accumulated 26 multi-homer games, including nine three-homer games, four four-homer games, and a pair of five-homer efforts.
TAKE IT TO THE BANKS
Banks Tolley continues his banner season for the Mountaineers, headlined by program-record total and league-leading 25 home runs on the season. The Ole Miss transfer has hit safely in 44 of 52 games, including 25 multi-hit efforts. Tolley entered the tournament leading the Sun Belt in home runs, batting average (.385), slugging (.798), and OPS (1.288) and ranks second in the league in total bases (166), and RBIs (71), fourth in runs scored (66) and on-base (.490) and tied for fifth in hits (80). On April 2 against High Point, Tolley ripped a single to left field that left the bat at 113.62 miles-per-hour, the hardest hit ball by a Mountaineer in the TrackMan era. April 26 at Georgia State, Tolley crushed his 18
th home run of the season, establishing a new single-season program record. May 16 against Georgia Southern, Tolley matched Andre Crawford's program record by hitting three home runs in a game, including a walk-off blast in the 10th inning. Tolley was named the 2024 Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year and garnered First Team All-Conference recognition.
BASHIN' BOYD
With two home runs against Troy on Wednesday,
CJ Boyd broke the App State career home runs record, breaking a tie with Andre Crawford for 33 long balls all-time. After tying Daniel Kassouf's single-season record with 17 home runs last season, Boyd has eclipsed that mark with 18 blasts this year. In six games at the Sun Belt tournament across two seasons, Boyd has homered five times to go along with 13 hits and 13 RBIs in Montgomery. A first team All-Conference selection in 2023, and a preseason All-Conference selection this season, Boyd was ranked as the 64
th best outfielder in the nation on the D1baseball.com midseason rankings. Boyd tallied a walk-off single in the Mountaineers win over ETSU on April 23, almost exactly a year following a walk-off two-run homer against JMU in the 10
th inning in 2023. Boyd has also tallied consecutive seasons of double-digit home runs, doubles and stolen bases, swiping second base against Troy on Wednesday. Last year he recorded the first such seasons since Wes Hobson in 2010.
ALL SAINTS DAY
Redshirt junior
Austin St. Laurent has been red hot at the plate as of late, hitting safely in 29 of his last 33 games. Over that span he has gone 62-for-152 (.408), with nine home runs, 36 RBIs and 51 runs scored. St. Laurent has slugged 14 home runs this season, more than doubling his total (6) from his first two years combined. After playing first base and shortstop as a freshman and center field as a sophomore, St. Laurent began the season as the everyday third baseman, before shifting to shortstop in mid-April. Entering the tournament, St. Laurent ranked among league leaders in triples (4 – T-1st), hits (85 – 2nd), runs scored (74 – 3rd), batting average (.371 – T-6th), OPS (1.061 – 10th) and RBIs (57 – 10th).
ALL ABOARD
Drew Holderbach has been a valuable addition for the Mountaineers this season, after joining the team as a grad transfer from Rice. The first baseman reached base safely in each of the Mountaineers first 43 games of the season marking the second-longest on-base streak in program history. Holderbach has reached base at a .485 clip this season which is sixth in the Sun Belt. He has totaled 63 hits, 38 walks and 17 hit by pitch compared to just 36 strikeouts. Holderbach belted the go-ahead home run in the March 17 win at Texas State, which was the longest home run hit by a Mountaineer in recorded history, traveling 465 feet. Holderbach tallied an 11-game hitting streak from Feb. 20 through March 10. He entered the tournament among league leaders in doubles (18 – T-4th), hit by pitch (17 – T-5th), runs scored (61 – 8th), walks (38 – 8th), and on-base (.470 – T-8th).
SUPER STEENSMA
After recording seven saves as a closer his freshman season,
Jackson Steensma has been superb since moving into the starting rotation as a sophomore. Steensma has made 12 starts this season, going 6-2 with a 4.15 ERA. Steensma ranks among league leaders in opponent's batting average (.238 – T-8th), strikeouts (69 – T-7th), looking strikeouts (24 – 5th), wins (6 – T-8th) and innings pitched (65 – 10th). Steensma registered a career-high ten strikeouts in a win over Troy on April 13 and has combined for 26 strikeouts and just one walk across his last four starts. The sophomore also took a no hitter into the fifth inning against Marshall on March 30.
WHAT A RELIEF
Senior right-hander
Grey LaSpaluto is undefeated out of the Mountaineers bullpen this season, boasting an 8-1 record which is tied for the most in the Sun Belt this season. Over LaSpaluto's last 14 outings he has struck out 27 batters in 20.1 innings of work. The Mountaineers are 15-5-1 in games in which LaSpaluto pitches. He has struck out a career-high five batters three times this season.
HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT
App State has registered a .414 on-base percentage this season, in large part due to being hit by a lot of pitches. App State batters have been hit 117 times in 52 games, a mark that ranks second in the Sun Belt and ranks fifth in the country. Individually,
Drew Holderbach has been hit by 17 pitches, which ranks fifth in the conference.
ONE-HIT WONDER
In game one of the Mountaineers' doubleheader on May 5,
Dante Chirico and
Cody Little combined to one-hit South Alabama, combining for two streaks of 13 consecutive batters retired in the game. Despite allowing a leadoff home run to begin the ballgame, Chirico did not allow a hit thereafter in a career-high seven innings of work. South Alabama finished the game 1-for-29 at the plate. The Mountaineers have now spun a one-hitter in three consecutive seasons, with
Eli Ellington and
Caleb Cross combining to one-hit UT-Arlington in 2022 and
Xander Hamilton and
Seth Whitley combining to one-hit No. 8 Coastal Carolina in 2023.
National Recognition
D1Baseball.com ranked
Banks Tolley (54) and CJ Body (64) as Top-100 outfielders on their midseason rankings. Following week 12 play,
Drew Holderbach was ranked as the 37
th best first baseman in the country,
Austin St. Laurent was named the 28
th best third baseman,
Banks Tolley was named the 14
th best outfielder and
Jackson Steensma was selected as the 142nd-best starting pitcher in the country.
SUPERB SUN BELT
App State enters the tournament with an RPI of 76, sitting as one of nine Sun Belt teams inside the top-100 in college baseball. The Sun Belt continues to be one of the top conferences in college baseball, ranking fifth in the nation in RPI, ahead of the Pac12. Last season nine Sun Belt teams finished in the Top-100 in RPI, with four Sun Belt squads advancing to the regional round of the NCAA tournament.
2024 Bullets
- Series win over No. 13 Coastal Carolina was the first series win versus a top-15 opponent since the 2012 squad took two of three from No. 7 LSU in Baton Rouge
- App State has set the program record for most home runs in the BBCOR Bat era (since 2011)
- 20 runs against Arkansas State on April 19 were the most since 2019 and most ever against a Sun Belt opponent
- 12-12 tie with the Red Wolves on April 21 was just the eighth tie in program history and the first for the Mountaineers since 2010 against Western Carolina
- 2-0-1 series at Arkansas State was first unbeaten three-game Sun Belt road series since 2018 at UT Arlington
- App State has never before recorded a six-game unbeaten stretch in Sun Belt play
- Five different Mountaineers have tallied an 11-game hitting streak this season
- Five different Mountaineers have recorded a two-homer game this season
- App State won four consecutive Sun Belt series for the first time in program history (ASU, GSU, USA, ODU)
UP NEXT
If the Mountaineers can earn a win over Coastal, they will continue play in the Sun Belt tournament on Friday against the loser of second-seeded Southern Miss and third-seeded Troy at 4 p.m. ET. All Sun Belt tournament games are streamed on ESPN+ and will have an audio broadcast on appstatesports.com.
