HICKORY, N.C. — Kameron Miller took a hit, then delivered a game-changing one.
Struck hard in the side by a fouled-off liner toward the home dugout while he was standing in the on-deck circle Friday, Miller went to the plate moments later and delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie as App State won 5-2 against Canisius in the 2026 season opener at L.P. Frans Stadium.
Due to the weekend weather forecast, the three-game series is now scheduled to conclude Saturday with a doubleheader that starts at noon.
Tanner Nolan,
Nick DiRito (win) and
Ethan Wilson (save) allowed a combined five hits while striking out 11 batters in a low-scoring opener with strong pitching and defense from the Mountaineers.
Miller's single through the left side to break the 1-all tie scored
Nico Soul and
Ethan Puig.
Joseph Zamora fouled out in an eventful plate appearance before that, as Miller was hit by a foul ball off the left-handed-hitting Zamora's bat with runners on first and second, before they advanced later in the at-bat on strong reads of a pitch in the dirt.
"That has never happened to me before," Miller said of being hit by a foul ball like that. "I've only ever seen it on video. It was actually my roommate,
Joseph Zamora, who did it. A little payback — I hit him in the head with a bat the other day, so fair enough.
"Knowing what the main goal is, I got to come up in a big spot and help the guys out."
Canisius added one run in the seventh, but DiRito closed out a strong, four-inning effort out of the bullpen before giving way to Wilson for the final two innings. The Mountaineers added two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth, scoring on RBI singles from Puig and right fielder
Drew DuPont, who had made a difficult running catch near the fence in foul territory in the top half of the frame.
Wilson, a Belmont Abbey transfer, pitched a perfect ninth and retired six of the seven batters he faced, ending the game with a strikeout.
Nolan, a left-handed Crowder College transfer, started on the mound and allowed one run in three innings. DiRito, a UMass Lowell transfer who played against App State in L.P. Frans Stadium last year and struck out the side in the ninth inning of a 1-0 loss to the Mountaineers, gave up one run on four hits while striking out six batters over his four innings with his new team.
"Just limiting damage, when a guy gets on, not staying away from what our end goal is and not letting up runs," DiRito said.
After retiring the side in order to begin the game, Nolan allowed a leadoff double off the wall in the second. A walk put two on, and it appeared the bases would be loaded via a hit by pitch, but umpires gathered and determined that the batter leaned into it.
Instead of the bases being loaded with nobody out, Nolan struck out that batter and followed a sacrifice bunt with another strikeout.
An inning later, Canisius got on the board with a two-out rally, as a hit batter and walk loaded the bases before another hit batter push across the game's first run, but Nolan limited the damage by striking out the next batter looking on a 3-2 breaking ball.
DiRito struck out three batters in a scoreless fourth. Canisius led off the fifth with a double and had runners at the corners with one away, but DiRito fanned the next batter and induced a groundout to end the threat.
App State tied the score in the fifth, when
Jake Mummau scored on
Brooks Wright's sacrifice fly, then took its first lead in the sixth. Soul and Puig reached via a hit by pitch (prompting a pitching change) and a walk to set the stage for Miller's one-out delivery into left field.
The insurance runs in the eighth occurred after
Tank Yaghoubi drew a leadoff walk and reached second as his hustle down the line impacted the focus and execution on the speedy Soul's grounder toward a second baseman positioned near the bag.
A misplay of the grounder put two runners on, Puig singled in the next at-bat to drive in Yaghoubi, and a groundout was followed by an intentional walk to Miller to load the bases. DuPont's single through the right side brought in Soul for the final run.
Soul scored twice, and seven different Mountaineers had one hit apiece.
The 2026 season is presented by Chick-fil-A.
