ATLANTA – App State Baseball used a trio of home runs and a career strikeout effort from
Nick DiRito to defeat Georgia State 12-2 for its 30th win of the year, locking up a top-six seed in next week's Sun Belt tournament.
The Mountaineers have now won at least 30 games in three of the past four seasons. It also marked the team's 17th Sun Belt win of the season, the most in program history.
DiRito recorded each of his first eight outs via the strikeout and ultimately totaled a career-high 11 punchouts in five innings of work to earn the victory. He allowed just two runs on five hits. DiRito has now struck out 85 batters on the season, the fifth-most in a single season in program history.
The offense gave DiRito the lead before he even took the mound. In the top of the first,
Steven Smith was hit by a pitch, and
Riley Luft cranked a two-run home run to left field to put App State (30-20, 17-11) ahead 2-0, just two batters into the contest.
After the Panthers (24-28, 12-16) cut the lead in half with a run in the home first,
Tommy Walker belted a solo home run to left-center field in the second to put the Mountaineers ahead 3-1.
App State scored at least a run in each of the first four innings.
Jake Mummau and
Nico Soul laced back-to-back doubles in the third inning, and after
Charlie Evans tripled in the fourth,
Joseph Zamora plated him with a sacrifice fly to go ahead, 5-1.
Max Tramontana took over on the mound for DiRito in the sixth and took the game to the finish line. The right-hander was superb, striking out four and allowing just two baserunners across four scoreless innings to earn his first career save. The duo combined to record a season-high 15 strikeouts on the night.
App State pulled away with a seven-run ninth inning. Each of the first eight batters reached in the frame, highlighted by a grand slam from
Brooks Wright, the first collegiate home run for the redshirt freshman catcher.
Ethan Puig also plated a run with an RBI single, while two other runs crossed on wild pitches.
The Mountaineers will go for their seventh Sun Belt series win of the season on Friday when the league's strikeout leader
Gage Peterson takes his unblemished 8-0 record to the mound at 6 p.m.
The 2026 App State Baseball season is presented by Chick-fil-A.
