BOONE, N.C. - Winners of four of their last five contests, the App State softball team is set to return home to Boone this Friday-Sunday to kick off a stretch of six home games in seven contests. The stretch will start with a three-game series against the Marshall Thundering Herd, which is currently tied atop the Sun Belt standings with a 7-2 conference record. All games will start at noon.
Marshall's visit to the High Country will be The Herd's first time playing App State in Boone since 2023. The two teams were scheduled to meet for a three-game series in early March to open Sun Belt play that year, but two games were wiped out due to weather. App State has won just once against Marshall, with the lone win coming in 2019.
The Matchup
- Who: App State (13-20, 4-5 SBC) vs. Marshall (21-14, 7-2 SBC)
- Where: Boone, N.C. // Sywassink/Lloyd Family Stadium
- When: Friday, April 4 – Sunday, April 6
Tune In
- Live Stats: appstatesports.com
Last Time Out
In one of its more complete weekends of the season, App State swept the James Madison Dukes on the road this past weekend. The Mountaineers dominated all facets of the game against the Dukes as they outscored JMU by 17 runs (23-6), pitched to a 2.33 team ERA and didn't commit an error on defense. App State has scored 34 runs over its last five games, good for an average of 6.8 per game.
Four different players tallied a .500 or better batting average in Harrisonburg and four players hit home runs. As a team, the Mountaineers batted .370, slugged .646 and hit seven home runs, which is the most they have hit in a weekend this season. Five of those homers came in the series opener last Friday, which is the most the team has hit in a game since April 28, 2019. App State has hit 12 home runs in its last five games.
Leah Gore,
Makayla McClain,
Julia Girk and
Taylor Chumbley each hit over .500 last weekend while
Grace Barrett hit .400. McClain posted her first career two-homer game last Friday before driving home a career-best five RBIs in Saturday's contest. She reached base nine times in 13 plate appearances.
Macy Hamby also recorded a multi-homer game on Friday, which was the first of her career. Hamby homered in each of her first two at-bats in Harrisonburg, which gave her a home run in three consecutive at-bats after hitting an opposite-field home run in her final at-bat on March 23 against Georgia Southern.
Leading Off
App State's sweep of James Madison marked its fifth series sweep of a Sun Belt opponent since joining the league in 2015. The Mountaineers swept Georgia State in Atlanta last season, making this the first time the team has posted a Sun Belt series sweep in back-to-back seasons.
Additionally, App State enters the weekend against Marshall with four conference wins, which matches the total mark for conference wins from each of the past two seasons. Head coach
Whitney Jones already has the third-most conference wins by an App State first-year head coach.
Following the sweep of James Madison, App State swept the Sun Belt's weekly awards as McClain was named the Sun Belt Player of the Week and
Sophie Moshos was named the Sun Belt Pitcher of the Week. It was the first time since Feb. 23, 2009, that the Mountaineers have swept their conference's weekly awards. Moshos' Pitcher of the Week honors were App State's first as a member of the Sun Belt.
In addition to the Mountaineers' strong offensive output at James Madison last weekend, the Mountaineer defense didn't make a miscue in the field all weekend. Entering Friday, App State has been error-free in five straight games, marking the longest streak of errorless softball since opening the 2024 season with five straight error-free contests. The last time App State posted six or more error-free games was from April 14-22, 2022 (six straight).
The App State duo of McClain and Hamby became the first pair of Mountaineers in the Sun Belt era to each tally a multi-homer game in the same game last Friday against JMU. The last time two Mountaineers hit two homers in the same game was on April 9, 2007, when Kristyn Hurt and Keri Blackwelder both hit two against Elon at the old site of Sywassink/Lloyd Family Stadium.
Scouting the Mountaineers
App State has been one of the best extra-base hitting teams in the Sun Belt this season as it enters the weekend vs. Marshall with top-five marks in doubles (fifth), homers (T-fourth), slugging percentage (fifth) and RBIs (fifth). Coach Jones came to the High Country with a hitting pedigree as across stints at UCF and Ohio State the last three years, her teams posted top-five conference marks in homers-per-game, triples-per-game and slugging percentage.
App State's offensive eruption in Harrisonburg last weekend helped raise its team slugging percentage by 21 points to .450. This number would be a program record and would be 16 points clear of the current program record.
App State's core of freshmen and sophomores have thrived so far this season as underclassmen have combined to scorch 76 percent of its hits and driven home 76 percent of its RBIs. App State underclassmen take up eight of the top 10 marks in hitting on the team entering play vs. Marshall this weekend.
Additionally, all but seven of App State's 31 home runs this season have come from underclassmen (77 percent). Gore, Barrett,
Madison McIntyre, Hamby and Chumbley have each hit at least three homers this season, which places them all in the top 35 of the Sun Belt. Gore has hit seven homers this season, which is tied for the 13th-most in the league while McIntyre's six longballs are tied for the 16th-most.
McClain has continued to be a tone-setter at the top of the Mountaineer order as she enters Friday leading the team in hits, runs, batting average, home runs, RBIs, OPS, slugging percentage and walks. Her Player of the Week nod last Tuesday marked the second time this season that she has been named Player of the Week, making her the only Sun Belt player to receive the weekly honor twice this season.
Coach Jones made it a point of emphasis all offseason long to play fast, aggressive softball. That has paid off this season as the speed the Mountaineers brought in this past offseason has resulted in better base-stealing numbers and has helped steal multiple runs throughout the season. App State has already stolen more bases than it did all of last season (19) and the year prior (22). Additionally, the Mountaineers have only been caught stealing one time, which is the fewest in the league.
App State has found a solid top-four to its lineup in McClain, Hamby, Barrett and Gore. Together, the quartet combined for 19 hits in 41 at-bats (.463 batting average) at James Madison last weekend, while crushing six homers and producing 14 RBIs. Each of the four hitters enters play against Marshall with a .280 batting average or better and a .490 slugging percentage or better.
In the circle, the Mountaineers are led by Moshos, who is the reigning Sun Belt Pitcher of the Week. The lefty boasts a 3.21 ERA and has struck out 79 hitters entering Friday. Both of those numbers are in the top 10 in the league in the Sun Belt Conference. Moshos currently owns nine wins for the season, which places her two away from App State's top 10 in single-season wins.
Series History
- App State vs. Marshall
- Last Meeting: April 28, 2024
- Record: 1-9
- Trends:
- App State is set to host Marshall in Boone for just the second time ever this weekend.
- Marshall has won four straight in the series and eight of nine overall. The last time App State beat the Thundering Herd was 2019 at a neutral site.
Up Next
Following Sunday's contest, App State will play its first midweek contest of the season on Wednesday, taking to Boiling Springs for a matchup with the Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs at Brinkley Softball Stadium. It will be the first of just two midweek competitions for the Mountaineers this season. First pitch is slated for 5 p.m. and the game can be streamed on ESPN+.
