ASU sweeps Paladins
By Bryan Lail
Special to the Democrat

It’s mathmatically impossible for Appalachian State to win the Southern Conference baseball championship.

However, the Mountaineers made winning the SoCon much more difficult for Furman by sweeping the Paladins over the weekend.

The Mountaineers won Friday 5-0, Saturday 14-3 and Sunday 4-2 as they swept the Paladins to jump over Western Carolina and take hold of sixth place in the conference with three regular season games remaining.

With two wins in the books and down 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth in game three on Sunday, the recent thunderstorms struck Beaver Field in an attempt to ruin the Mountaineers’ (29-23, 13-11 SoCon) perfect weekend. At the end of the day, the Paladins (29-20, 15-9 SoCon) were left wishing that rain had never let up.

As play finally resumed with the Mountaineers’ Isaac Harrow still holding second base from an earlier double, David Towarnicky drew a walk from Paladin relief pitcher Ian Parry to take first before Andrew Franco’s pinch hit, two out triple.

The extra-base hit brought both Mountaineers in for what would prove to be the winning hit as the Mountaineers tacked on one more run for insurance in the eighth to secure the 4-2 win.

“I had been watching the guy and he threw from different arm slots and every time he dropped down he threw fast balls, Franco said. “I was up 1-0 when he dropped down and I knew it was gonna be a fast ball so I extended my arms and got the pitch I was looking for.”

Appalachian State starting pitcher Aubrey Edens provided the Mountaineers with nearly six innings of work and limited the Paladins to two earned runs, both off solo home-runs early in the game.

As enticing as a 30-minute rain delay may be, much of the weekend’s excitement came in game one on Friday evening as Paladin ace Jay Jackson led off the weekend series sporting a 9-1 record against Appalachian’s Matt Andress.

A scoreless affair ensued as both starting pitchers relied on strong defensive play behind several ground and fly ball outs to hold both teams scoreless through seven innings.

“You have to give a lot of credit to Furman’s pitching staff,” coach Chris Pollard said. “I thought that Jackson threw one of the best ball games that we’ve seen all year.”

The Mountaineers barely avoided at least one run scored by Furman in the fourth as the Paladins led off the inning with a deep liner to the right field wall; attempting to push the hit to a triple, Furman’s Marcus Rose was thrown out in a close play at third with a laser throw assist by Mountaineer right fielder David Rubinstein. An ensuing single by the next Furman batter would have otherwise scored Rose.

“They’ve been behind me all year, Andress said. “It was nothing new, it’s almost expected and they played really well tonight.”

After totaling only three hits in the previous seven innings, the Mountaineers finally broke through against the impressive Jackson with a five run bottom half of the eighth topped off by Harrow’s three run homer. The Mountaineers scored two runs to lead off the inning behind Wes Hobson’s two RBI triple and a couple of Paladin miscues. Adam Beasley’s bloop single led off the inning before Jackson would walk Jason Altenhof on a full count; both would eventually score on Hobson’s triple.

“I got ahead 2-0 and I know with Rubi behind me, he’s not one to walk me.” Hobson said of Jackson. “I put a good swing on it and luckily found that hole.”

“I was just waiting for that inning to come and it came at the right time and once it starts going it explodes, Andress said. “It was fun to watch but it happens a lot with how good our offense is.”

It certainly happened a lot in game two Saturday evening.

With a 3-1 deficit after two innings, Appalachian pitcher Josh Dowdy found a groove he never lost the tune to.

Singles by Furman’s Campbell Lewis and Brian Harrison put two on base with only one out before Matt Hemingway’s center field double would score both runners to account for Dowdy’s two earned runs on the night. A grounder later in the inning could have ended the inning but was bobbled at second base allowing another Paladin run to increase their early lead to 3-0.

“That second inning I kind of got wild a little bit and I was in and out, up and down and my mechanics were off a little bit,” Dowdy said. “I started throwing more strikes and that’s what got me through to the sixth inning, I got dinked around a bit there towards the end but that’s baseball.”

After the Mountaineers scored one in the bottom half of the same inning to improve the deficit to 3-1, Dowdy and the Mountaineers went to work.

Dowdy would go on to total ten hits in six innings without allowing any runs beyond the three put up by Furman in the second. The Mountaineer offense would bust out two innings later by putting together five runs in the fourth, four in the sixth and three in the seventh to account for the one game of the series not decided by a pitching duel.

Adam Mills would relieve Dowdy in the seventh and provide 2 1/3 innings of shut-out work before the senior received a heartfelt send off by the entire Mountaineer squad. Mills is one of six Appalachian graduates who played their final regular season home game of their college career this past weekend.

“It’s just been unreal,” Mills said, “to go from 10-42 in my freshman year to now when were contending for the SoCon title.”

With four games remaining, all on the road, the Mountaineers are staying focused on their goals without looking too far ahead. Appalachian State plays at UNC Asheville Tuesday and then closes out its season with a three-game series at Wofford, beginning Friday and ending with a doubleheader Saturday.

Were just going to take it one game at a time, were going to go to UNC Asheville and play for a “W” but the most important thing is to set up our pitching going to the weekend,” Pollard said. “We can’t get caught up in what everybody else is doing, we want to make sure we don’t deviate from that. We developed a slogan that we were going to bury our heads in the moment and not look up until the end of the year. We’ll look up at the end and see where we are.”