ASU sweeps Wildcats
By Bryan Lail
Special to the Democrat

Appalachian State won its fourth straight game after completing a three-game sweep of visiting Davidson over their weekend series at Smith Stadium.

The Mountaineers (24-22, 8-10 SoCon) took an easy 10-5 victory Friday behind a solid outing from pitcher Matt Andress. Appalachian State moved on to win two consecutive one-run decisions starting with an 8-7 nail-biter Saturday, before holding on to an early 5-4 lead to complete the sweep Sunday.

The Wildcats (10-28, 2-16) jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over Appalachian starting pitcher Josh Dowdy in game two Saturday night. Dowdy would go on to allow a total of four earned runs and win his third decision of the season.

Brett Shore of the Wildcats went 7-for-10 on the series, accounting for the Wildcats’ second score early in game two on an RBI single by fellow Wildcat Zach Kayne.

After stranding Kayne on third with a strikeout to end the Wildcats’ second, a struggling Dowdy settled in, throwing a scoreless fourth and fifth after the Mountaineers provided Dowdy the room he needed to locate the tightly-called strike zone with a five run surge in the bottom half of the inning.

“I had good stuff,” Dowdy said. “I was just barely missing and when you’re barely missing in the college level and you have to leave stuff over the plate guys will eventually hit it.”

The bottom half of the Mountaineers’ order contributed the majority of the offensive production in the two one run games, with some leadoff help from Jason Altenhof, His fourth home run of the season, during a 3-for-5, three-RBI performance Saturday, gave the Mountaineers their first lead in game two.

Davidson starting pitcher Chris Kennedy walked three consecutive batters to load the bases with two outs remaining in the second.

A single up the middle by Appalachian’s Rand Smith would bring in Brett Stewart and Jarod Faggart to tie the game at 2-2 before Altenhof’s home run deep over the right field wall gave the Mountaineers the lead for the remainder of the game.

The Mountaineers were held scoreless for the next four innings behind strong outings from Davidson’s relief staff.

“You have to tip your hat to Davidson,” Mountaineers coach Chris Pollard said. “After we were able to get Kennedy out of the ball game, we’ve got to have a better approach and try to make that quick adjustment from the lefty to the righty in terms of how we see that ball out of the hand and what we were trying to do.

Their guys did a really good job in terms of keeping us off balance.”

Shore contributed to his big day with a single and stolen base in the sixth, before a bloop bouncer to right field scored the Wildcats left fielder and an error later in the inning brought in one more to draw Davidson within two.

“Go in the bathroom and take the sink off the wall and throw that up there next time because we’ve thrown everything we can at him,” Pollard said. He was just a hot hitter.”

After adding what would amount to an important insurance run in the eighth behind Isaac Harrow’s double, the Mountaineers took a three run advantage into the ninth, allowing closer Garrett Sherrill on to close things out.

Sherrill completed two scoreless innings on Friday to secure the Mountaineers win in game one, and signs of fatigue were apparent in the his game two outing.

Zach Kayne topped his strong evening with a two-run homer lined over the right field wall after the resilient second baseman fouled off several pitches on a full count to hang in and bring Davidson within a single run of the tie.

After walking three straight, Pollard kept Sherrill on the mound to clean up the two-out, bases-loaded situation with a strikeout of Davidson’s Danny Weiss to clinch the Mountaineers series victory over the Wildcats with one game to go.

The early hitting battle continued into Sunday’s matchup, as Davidson and Appalachian traded runs in the second and third innings before the scoring went stagnant on both sides through the middle innings.

Brant West, Davidson’s starting pitcher Sunday, would walk Rand Smith to lead off the Mountaineers’ third inning before a late double play attempt to first scored the center fielder, drawing the Mountaineers within one run of their early deficit.

With two on base, Brett Stewart’s sixth home run of the season would give the Mountaineers a 5-3 advantage they never relinquished.

“Brett continues to feast off left-handed pitching. That one swing was the difference in the ball game, Pollard said.”

Aubrey Edens took the mound for Appalachian Sunday, working through eight full innings and totaling 124 pitches, before Adam Mills came on in the ninth to close out the Mountaineers’ one-run advantage.

Edens struggled to hold off the Wildcats, giving up four early runs before settling into the sixth with his quickest inning of the day, drawing a ground ball out before striking out the next two batters.

“It’s all about the separation of his hands with the rest of his delivery, when he gets that timed up he’s as good as anybody we’ve got. In that sixth inning he came out and it felt right and he was able to capitalize,” Pollard said of Eden’s recovery.

With one out remaining to avoid the sweep, the relentless Shore stepped up to the plate in a fitting end to the weekend series. After going 3-for-3 with one walk in another impressive performance on Sunday, Shore flew out to center field to seal the Mountaineers’ victory.