BOONE, N.C. – App State Baseball will travel to Old Dominion for a three-game weekend series, becoming the first Sun Belt team to visit the new Ellmer Family Baseball Complex. First pitch Friday is set for 6 p.m., with the middle game scheduled for 3 p.m. on Saturday. The series concludes on Sunday, with first pitch slated for 1 p.m. in the finale. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS
App State (10-9, 0-3) fell in three narrow losses to No. 16 Coastal Carolina last weekend to open Sun Belt play. The starting pitching was impressive for the Mountaineers in the series, combining to allow just six earned runs over 15.2 innings, highlighted by seven scoreless innings from
Gage Peterson on Saturday. Peterson leads the Mountaineers with a 3-0 record and a 1.24 ERA through five starts. At the plate, two-way player
Steven Smith is batting .354 with three doubles, three home runs and 17 RBIs. Five of App State's losses have come by just one run this season, and only one of its nine losses have come by more than five runs.
SCOUTING THE MONARCHS
Old Dominion (10-9, 1-2) enters with an identical overall record and fell in its first conference series of the season, dropping two of three at Troy. The Monarchs are hitting .305 as a team, which is third in the Sun Belt, and are scoring 7.3 runs per game. They are led at the plate by Tyler Zedalis who is batting .400 with three doubles, four home runs and 16 RBIs in 17 games. He is one of four players with an OPS of over 1.000. The pitching staff has not had the same success as the offense as the team holds a 6.75 ERA. Darin Kuskie has a pair of wins in five starts. Old Dominion was picked seventh in the Sun Belt preseason poll.
SERIES HISTORY
App State and Old Dominion have squared off 14 times in program history with the Monarchs holding a narrow 8-6 advantage all-time. The Mountaineers won two of three in Boone last season, highlighted by two home runs and five RBIs from
Kameron Miller across the first two games.
NATIONAL RECOGNITION
Four App State Baseball players have garnered national recognition heading into the 2026 season.
Nico Soul was projected to be the No. 1 impact freshman in the Sun Belt,
Gage Peterson (31) and
Carter Stanford (48) were both projected as top 50 draft prospects within the conference, while
Tanner Nolan was ranked as the 153rd best starting pitcher across Division I baseball. The recognition has continued into the season, as
Jonathan Xuereb was named to the Brooks Wallace Award Watch List, given to the top shortstop in college baseball, on March 4 and Peterson was named to the National Pitcher of the Year Watch List on March 11.
GAS FROM GAGE
Right-handed pitcher
Gage Peterson has been sensational for the Mountaineers through five starts this season. Last time out, Peterson fired seven scoreless innings, striking out nine, against No. 16 Coastal Carolina. It came on the heels of a career-high 11 strikeouts against Presbyterian the weekend prior. Peterson is 3-0 this season with a 1.24 ERA and has struck out 41 batters in 29.0 innings of work. Peterson ranks second in the Sun Belt and 24
th nationally in ERA, while also ranking second in the league and 17
th in the nation in strikeouts. He has not allowed an earned run in four of his five outings. The JuCo transfer from Walters Peterson posted an 11.98 K/9 across two seasons at the junior college level and sits at 14.95 this season. Peterson was named to the National Pitcher of the Year Watch List on March 11.
FLAMIN' HOT DIRITO
After early-season dominance out of the bullpen,
Nick DiRito was moved into the Friday spot in the rotation, where he has started each of the last two weekends. DiRito has struck out 38 batters while walking just six this season. His 6.33 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranks fifth in the Sun Belt. The righty also owns a 14.25 K/9 rate on the year, which leads the Sun Belt and ranks 15
th nationally.
ALL ABOUT SOUL
Freshman
Nico Soul leads the Mountaineers with five home runs this season after hitting a towering shot off the batter's eye against No. 16 Coastal Carolina on Sunday. It marked his second leadoff home run this season, also hitting one on the first pitch of the game at Duke. Soul owns a .886 OPS this season. A three-time all-state selection at Marvin Ridge High School (N.C.), Soul was named the top impact freshman in the Sun Belt by D1Baseball leading into the season.
XUEREB NAMED TO BROOKS WALLACE WATCH LIST
Redshirt junior shortstop
Jonathan Xuereb was named to the Brooks Wallace Award Watch List, which was announced by the College Baseball Hall of Fame on March 4. The year-end award is given to the top shortstop in college baseball. Xuereb hit safely in each of his first ten games played this season, batting .342 (15-for-43), with three doubles and eight RBIs over that stretch. It marks the second consecutive season that a Mountaineer has garnered this recognition.
2-WAY STANDOUT
Steven Smith has impressed for the Mountaineers in the early season – both at the plate and on the mound. The transfer from Division III Emory and Henry is batting .354 (23-65) with six doubles, three home runs and 17 RBIs. Smith hit his first home run of the season on Feb. 20 against North Carolina A&T and followed with a walk-off home run on Feb. 21 in a run-rule win. He has also pitched for the Mountaineers this season tossing 6.0 innings across five appearances. He is the first two-way player for the Mountaineers since Andrew Terrell and Phillip Cole pitched and hit in 2021.
BRINGING THE WIFF
App State pitching has struck out 203 batters this season, the third-most in the Sun Belt. The Mountaineers staff owns a 10.9 K/9 rate this season, a major jump from the Mountaineers 7.7 K/9 rate from a season ago. App State has also lowed its team ERA from 7.03 in 2025 to 5.10 in 2026 under first-year pitching coach
Heath Blackmon.
BOMBS AWAY
App State homered twice in the three-game set against Coastal Carolina this weekend and have now homered 19 times through 19 games – including four games with three home runs. App State's improved offense the last several seasons has been tied to a big jump in power numbers at the plate. After hitting just 29 home runs in 2022, App Stat has hit at least 50 home runs in each of the past three seasons. This stretch has been highlighted by Banks Tolley setting the single-season program record with 26 home runs in 2024, while CJ Boyd set the App State career home run record with 35 – hitting 17 in 2023 and 18 in 2024.
YEAR HOME RUNS GAMES HR/GM
2026 19 19 1.00
2025 53 54 0.98
2024 96 55 1.75
2023 67 55 1.23
2022 29 53 0.55
SUPERB SUN BELT
The Sun Belt continues to be one of the top conferences in college baseball, and ranks fifth in the nation in conference RPI. Coastal Carolina was the College World Series runner-up a season ago, falling to LSU, while Southern Miss joined the Chanticleers in hosting a regional in 2025. The league sent four teams to regionals in 2022 through 2024 and has done so six times since 2000. Southern Miss is ranked 12th in this week's top-25 poll, with Coastal ranked 16th. Louisiana also joined this week's rankings at No. 25. Those three teams, along with Arkansas State, all rank in the top 30 nationally in RPI this season.
UP NEXT
The Mountaineers will host High Point on Tuesday at Smith Stadium. The Mountaineers and Panthers were supposed to play last Tuesday in High Point, but that game was canceled due to inclement weather, making the upcoming matchup the lone meeting of the season. The Panthers are 11-9 on the season and just two weekends ago took two of three games from No. 9 Florida last weekend and following it up with a mid-week victory over Duke. Tuesday's game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
