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Smith Stadium opens home season with 22-6 victory |
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
 Junior Aubrey Edens throws the opening pitch of Tuesday’s game. The Mountaineers won 22-6 against the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons. Photo by Holt Menzies
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by ASHLEY DAVIS
Sports Reporter
Smith Stadium was christened with four Appalachian home runs Tuesday, as Appalachian State University cruised to a 22-6 win over Wake Forest University.
Junior right-handed pitcher Aubrey Edens started the game for Appalachian, entering the game with a 6.89 earned run average and two wins on the season.
Edens found two easy outs in Deacon leadoff hitters, center fielder Ben
Terry and shortstop Dustin Hood in the first inning. With two outs,
Edens gave up two hits for Wake Forest to put the first run on the
scoreboard.
Appalachian’s offense was waiting to respond, however.
Shortstop Jason Altenhof opened an impressive day with a single to
center field, and earned a run when outfielder Jason Rook drove the
ball deep in the right field corner for a triple.
Third baseman Isaac Harrow hit his first homerun of the season two
batters later, placing the Mountaineers ahead of the Deacons 3-1.
During the second inning Appalachian picked up a double-play off of
Deacon Andy Goff, yet allowed two more Wake Forest runs before the
inning had closed.
The Mountaineers had only begun swinging for the fences though, as
catcher Andrew Franco hit a solo homer in the first Appalachian at-bat
for the inning.
Aided by hits from Altenhof and Rook, Appalachian evened the score with 5 runs.
“I’m trying to get ahead of hitters and keep my head in every pitch,”
Edens said. “One pitcher feeds off of the other and like today when I
didn’t do my job, then the next guy came in and backed me up. Everyone
just has confidence in each other.”
Nick Terry replaced Edens on the mound at the beginning of the fourth inning following another Deacon run in the third.
“[Wake Forest] came out and really played well early, punch for punch,”
ASU head coach Chris Pollard said. “I really think the difference was
Nick Terry. He settled in and gave us three zeros on the board when the
game could really have went either way.”
The fifth inning saw no runs cross the plate for either team - the only
calm that Wake Forest would see in the Appalachian run production.
Terry held the Deacons scoreless the next two innings, while the
Mountaineers combined for five runs in the sixth, three runs in the
seventh and six runs in the eighth.
Altenhof continued his momentum to close the day going 5-5 at the plate, tying his career high.
“It’s awesome to open up against a big ACC team like this, especially
when we played as well as we did,” Altenhof said. “Our relief pitching
was unbelievable. I feel like we have one of the best team offenses in
the nation. We’re swinging really well.”
Pinch-hitter Jason Wallace and back-up catcher Adam Beasley combined with a three-run homer each during the eighth inning.
“The past 10 days things have been really clicking. We’re starting to
pitch and hit at the same time. Earlier we couldn’t get those going at
the same time and now we have,” Pollard said. “The guys just have to
know that we can’t relax, because we have a very good [University of
North Carolina at Greensboro] team coming in here on Friday.”
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