By Matt Present. BOONE, N.C. – With two on and one out in the bottom of the ninth inning and the score deadlocked at 11, CJ Boyd chopped a base hit over the drawn-in infield to give App State a 12-11 walk-off win over ETSU, Tuesday night at Smith Stadium.
The game-winning single marked the Mountaineers third walk-off win of the season, and came almost exactly a year after Boyd blasted a walk-off home run to beat JMU.
App State (23-14-1, 8-9-1) opened the ballgame in impressive fashion. Trey Tujetsch retired the first eight Buccaneers’ batters of the ballgame and nine of the ten he faced overall. The offense gave the right-hander some early run support, scoring three runs in the first inning, highlighted by an RBI single from Adam Quintero.
The Mountaineers plated two more in the third. Drew Holderbach, who reached base four times in the ballgame, led off with a single, extending his on-base streak to 38 consecutive games. After a double from Banks Tolley, Boyd chopped an RBI single, and Quintero added his second RBI hit in as many innings later in the frame to get the Black and Gold out to a 5-0 head start. Tolley extended his hitting streak to ten straight games with a 4-for-5 effort.
After ETSU (24-14, 6-6) got on the board for the first time with a three-run fourth inning, App State responded by batting around in the home half of the frame. Boyd, who finished with three RBIs, plated a run with a sac fly and Xavier Moronta added an RBI single through the right side. With two outs in the inning, Hunter Wilder came through with a two-run single to push the lead to 9-3.
The Mountaineers added two more in the fifth, highlighted by Austin St. Laurent’s 11th home run of the season – a 421-foot blast to left – to go ahead 11-4.
The Buccaneers flipped the script thereafter. After batting around in a three-run sixth inning, Ryan McCarthy blasted a three-run homer in the seventh, to bring the visitors to within one at 11-10.
Then with the Mountaineers just four outs from victory, Blake Jacklin lifted a game-tying home run to left.
After Zach Lewis (win, 2-0) fired a 1-2-3 top of the ninth inning, the Mountaineers wasted no time jump-starting the rally in the bottom half of the frame. St. Laurent led off with a single through the right side for his third hit of the game, and two batters later Tolley singled back up the middle, putting runners at the corners for Boyd who delivered the final blow.
App State has now scored 56 runs over its last four games, tallying 60 hits over that span.
The team will return to conference play this weekend as the Mountaineers head to Atlanta for a three-game set with Georgia State.
