BOONE, N.C. – App State Baseball will play a ranked opponent for the second consecutive weekend, as the team travels to Conway, S.C. to face No. 19 Coastal Carolina in a three-game series. First pitch on Friday is set for 6 p.m., with Saturday's contest slated for 2 p.m. The series concludes on Sunday with first pitch set for 1 p.m. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS
App State enters the series 21-23 on the season and 11-10 in Sun Belt play, looking to snap a six-game losing streak. App State came up just short against Wake Forest in a pitcher's duel on Tuesday in Shelby, N.C., falling 3-2. Prior to that, the Mountaineers were swept last weekend by 22nd-ranked Southern Miss. App State is the second-highest scoring team in the Sun Belt, averaging 7.5 runs-per-game, while the Mountaineers pace the league in doubles and sacrifice flies and rank second in batting average and base hits.
Tyler Lichtenberger paces the Mountaineers with a .364 average, while
Juan Correa leads the way with 13 home runs and 49 RBIs on the campaign. Friday starter
Caleb Cross leads the pitching staff with a 3.23 ERA and 51 strikeouts this season.
SCOUTING THE CHANTICLEERS
Coastal Carolina enters the weekend in first place in the Sun Belt standings with a record of 34-11 overall and 17-4 in league play, having won four in a row. The Chanticleers rank 12th nationally in RPI and lead the Sun Belt in ERA, WHIP, strikeout-to-walk ratio, walks-per-nine innings and fielding percentage. Ty Dooley leads the offense with a .325 average to go along with five home runs and 32 RBIs. All three weekend starters (Jacob Morrison, Cameron Flukey and Riley Eikoff) boast a sub-3.50 ERA and have all struck out at least 40 batters this season. Morrison leads the way with a 7-0 record and a 2.24 ERA. The Chanticleers are led by first year head coach Kevin Schnall who took over from Gary Gilmore who retired at the end of last season following a 29-year run with Coastal Carolina.
SERIES HISTORY
App State and Coastal Carolina have met 21 times in a series that dates back to 2022. Coastal leads the all-time series 15-6, but the Mountaineers won three of the four meetings last season. In the regular season, App State took two of three from No. 13 Coastal in Boone, for the program's first series win over the Chanticleers. It marked the Mountaineers' first weekend series win against a top-15 opponent since a memorable 2012 road trip to No. 7 LSU. App State then defeated the Chanticleers 6-3 in an elimination game in the Sun Belt tournament on May 23.
Cody Little escaped a bases-loaded jam in the top of the seventh inning and
Drew Holderbach followed with a go-ahead three-run homer in the bottom half of the frame, lifting sixth-seeded App State to a 6-3 win. The Mountaineers also defeated the eighth-ranked Chanticleers in Conway in 2023, when Xander Hamilton set a program-record with 15 strikeouts en route to an 11-0 win.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Through 44 games this season, the App State offense has registered 90 doubles which leads the Sun Belt and ranks 57th nationally.
Tyler Figueroa leads the way with 13 doubles on the season, while
Braxton Church and
Tyler Lichtenberger have each notched a dozen two-baggers. The record for doubles in a season is 168, set in 2007. Individually, David Rubinstein owns the program record with 30 doubles in 2007.
FOR THE GREATER GOOD
App State has hit 28 sacrifice flies this season which leads the Sun Belt and ranks 13th in the country. Eleven different players have hit at least one sac fly, with
Braxton Church's seven sac flies leading the team. For comparison, App State finished 2024 with 25 sacrifice flies.
KAM GOES BAM
App State sophomore
Kameron Miller has been on a tear at the plate, reaching base safely in 29 of his last 31 games, including an 11-game hitting streak during that span. Miller has belted 10 home runs this season including a 471-foot missile against Western Carolina on April 8, the longest measured for an App State player in the TrackMan Era (since 2019). Miller ranks among Sun Belt leaders in OPS (6
th – 1.195), on-base (6
th - .480), RBIs (T-5
th – 43), walks (T-7
th – 32), average (8
th - .341), slugging (9
th - .615) and home runs (10
th – 10). Miller has transformed himself into a complete hitter in 2025, working a team-leading 32 times this season after not walking once as a freshman.
CROSS EM UP
Redshirt senior
Caleb Cross has been exceptional as the Friday night starter for the Mountaineers this season. Cross is tied for third in the Sun Belt with six wins on the season and is eight in the conference with a 3.23 ERA. Cross went through an extraordinary four-start stretch from March 28-April 18 where he went 4-0 with a 0.82 ERA (3 ER/33IP). Over that stretch, Cross threw seven no-hit innings against Old Dominion, an eight-inning complete game against ULM, a nine-inning shutout at Marshall and a nine-inning complete game vs James Madison.
Cross was named the Sun Belt Pitcher of the Week on April 15 following his complete game shutout against Marshall on April 11. Cross joins
Caleb Marks (March 8 vs. College of Charleston) as Mountaineer pitchers who have thrown a nine-inning, complete-game shutout this season. It marks the first time since Sam Agnew-Wieland threw two complete-game shutouts for App State in 2013 that the Mountaineers have achieved the feat twice in the same year.
JUAN GONE
App State first baseman
Juan Correa hit his 13th home run of the season on Saturday against Southern Miss to move into a tie for tenth in a single season in program history. Correa ranks among league leaders in RBIs (2
nd – 49), home runs (T-5
th – 13) and slugging (8
th - .615). Last season with the Charlotte 49ers, Correa finished the campaign with 12 home runs in 55 games played but never homered twice in the same contest, something he has done three times this season (against Queens, UMass Lowell and Wake Forest). Correa has hit safely in 31 of 38 games this season (in which he has recorded an official at-bat) including a ten-game hitting streak during that span.
LICHTENBERGER LEADS THE WAY
Freshman shortstop
Tyler Lichtenberger was named to the Brooks Wallace Award Watch List on April 18, a year-end honor presented to the top shortstop in college baseball. He joins Ryne Farber (TXST) as the only Sun Belt players to be named to the Watch List and he is the first Mountaineer to make the coveted list since Will Callaway in 2013.
Lichtenberger was inserted into the starting lineup the second game of the season and hasn't looked back, reaching base safely in 40 of 43 games played on the campaign and hit safely in 33 of those contests, including 22 multi-hit efforts. Lichtenberger ranks among Sun Belt leaders in batting (T-3
rd - .364) and hits (T-3rd – 59).
BULLPEN BRAD
After serving as the Mountaineers' Friday night starter last season,
Bradley Wilson has found lots of success coming out of the App State bullpen in 2025. On March 29 against Old Dominion, Wilson threw a career-high 7.0 scoreless innings to earn the win in relief. He allowed just three base runners – all singles – and retired the final 17 batters of the ballgame. Wilson has thrown at least five innings in relief in four different outings this season. On April 17 against James Madison, he earned the win by going 6.1 innings in relief and allowing just two earned runs, while striking out seven. The graduate student has allowed two earned run or fewer in 14 of his 20 outings this season. He boasts a 4.44 ERA and has struck out 40 batters in 50.2 innings of work this season, with opponents hitting just .245 against him. He has also allowed just one home run this season.
SOME ZA DELIVERY
Senior second baseman
Joseph Zamora helped the Mountaineers secure their first series win against Texas State with a walk-off single in the 11
th inning on March 15 and hit a game-tying double in the ninth inning on March 25 to force extra-innings against High Point. Through 42 games played this season Zamora is batting .325 with 32 RBIs and 35 runs scored. Zamora has struck out just 17 times in 195 plate appearances this season, making him the sixth-toughest player to strike out in the Sun Belt. He also made No. 2 on SportsCenter's Top-10 countdown for his diving catch in foul territory on which he covered 109 feet in the April 11 win over Marshall.
STRIKE THROWERS
App State's pitching staff has opened the 2025 season by consistently throwing strikes and getting ahead in counts. After issuing over six walks-per-nine innings in 2023, the Mountaineers trimmed that number to 5.4 walks-per-nine in 2024. So far in 2025, App State's walks-per-nine has dropped to 4.6. App State has walked four batters or fewer 24 times through 44 games, including two walk-free games.
SUPERB SUN BELT
The Sun Belt continues to be one of the top conferences in college baseball. Troy, Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss are all ranked in this week's D1Baseball top-25, while five Sun Belt schools rank in the top-100 nationally in RPI. Last year the league finished with nine teams in the top-100, with four making the NCAA Tournament.
UP NEXT
App State will continue its season-long seven-game road trip next weekend when the team travels to South Alabama for a three-game Sun Belt series.
