ASU claims series
From staff reports

STATESBORO, Ga. — Solid pitching and clutch hitting powered Appalachian State to its first Southern Conference series win of the season with a 5-3 victory Sunday at Georgia Southern.

The Mountaineers also won 5-3 Saturday, but lost the series opener 13-7.

It wasn’t pretty as the teams combined for seven errors and five unearned runs. Georgia Southern left runners on base in seven different innings, limiting one of the league's top offenses to just three runs in two straight games.

“I thought we really pitched well,” Mountaineers coach Chris Pollard said. “We talked about it Friday night as a staff after another tough loss.

“To get off the snide, we had to have a pitcher step up and get a good outing and we had two good outing on back-to-back days.”

Appalachian State (18-19, 3-9 SoCon) jumped out to an early lead for the third time in the series on an Isaac Harrow RBI single to left field in the top of the first.

The score remained 1-0 until the top of the fifth when Rand Smith reached first on a two-out throwing error. He scored following three more Eagle throwing errors in the inning to stretch Appalachian State’s lead to 2-0.

Georgia Southern responded in the bottom half of the inning with a pair of runs on two hits and two errors to tie the game 2-2.

Appalachian struck again with two outs in the sixth inning when Harrow singled and scored on an error by the Eagles’ center fielder, and in the eighth on a Harrow solo home run to center field to give the Mountaineers a 4-2 advantage.

Jason Altenhof picked up his second hit of the game and drove in Adam Beasley from second base in the ninth inning to increase the Mountaineers’ lead to 5-2. The hit was Appalachian State’s seventh of the game.

Georgia Southern (18-16, 5-7) drew a pair of one-out walks in the bottom of the ninth and both runners advanced a base before a ground out drove in a run off closer Garrett Sherrill. However, Sherrill did not give up a hit, nor did he give up any more runs in picking up his fourth save of the season.

Josh Dowdy threw six solid innings in the start. He allowed two unearned runs on seven hits and set a season high with seven strikeouts. Dowdy, who did not walk a batter, earned the win and moved to 2-6 for the season.

“Had he not pitched Wednesday in relief, he probably could have gone one more inning,” Pollard said of Dowdy. “Wednesday was his first day in relief, so we didn’t want to overdo it, but I also think the relief appearance helped him be sharp on Sunday.

Adam Mills entered the game for the seventh and allowed just one hit in the inning with a strikeout to preserve the lead before yielding to Sherrill in the eighth.

The Mountaineers continue their four-game road swing Wednesday with a 7 p.m. game at East Tennessee State.