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Big offensive night pushes Mountaineers past Bulldogs |
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Thursday, 03 April 2008 |
 Junior outfielder Rand Smith singles midway through the game. Smith had two hits and two RBIs in the 23-8 win over UNCA Tuesday. Photo by Adam Dixon
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by RYAN WIXTED
Sports Editor
The Appalachian State University baseball team managed to get in some much needed batting practice during Tuesday’s 23-8 thrashing of the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
After all, getting some extra swings would benefit the Mountaineers before the reigning Southern Conference champions College of Charleston comes to the High Country for a three-game series this
weekend.
The Mountaineers piled on 24 hits, with senior catcher Andrew Franco leading the offensive charge,
going 5-6 with two home runs and seven RBIs.
Coming in with a .224 batting average, Franco was able to improve his average to .274 after Tuesday’s win.
“It’s been a real rough season for me this year,” Franco said. “I am just fortunate that I am starting to swing the bat like I am capable.”
Franco said his offensive success this game was thanks to his place in the line up.
“I’m hitting in a real good spot, around a bunch of good hitters, and I am getting good pitches to hit
because of the guys around me,” Franco said.
Besides the offensive explosion, the Mountaineers got a strong outing from junior pitcher Zach Quate.
The Raleigh native pitched six innings, accounting for four strikeouts, eight hits and seven runs.
“I give him a lot of credit,” ASU head coach Chris Pollard said of Quate’s performance. “After that
inning in the third, a lot of pitchers would have shut it down and may have not even made it out of the
inning. But to not only make it out of the inning, he also turned around and gave us three zeros and
allowed us to stretch the lead, I thought was really big.”
The Mountaineers built a comfortable 10-1 lead heading into the third inning, but a couple of miscues
by Appalachian’s defense allowed the Bulldogs to score five runs and cut the deficit in half.
“We swung the bats well,” Pollard said. “I felt like we did some really good things in certain situations in
the fifth and sixth that really soften things away. They kind of chipped their way back into it, and did a
good job of taking advantage of some pretty fluke things that happened in the third.”
The Mountaineers offense came back in the fifth inning to score three runs, and then in the sixth to
score five more, which pushed the lead to 21-7.
With a comfortable seventh inning lead, Appalachian’s bullpen took over and only allowed one run in
the last three innings.
With the win, the Mountaineers move two games above .500, with a 15-13 record.
The team understands, however, there is still plenty of baseball left and at this point in the season,
every win is imperative.
“You got to win them all and every game matters now,” Franco said. “We’ve been on a real roller
coaster and we need to be able to string some games like this together.”
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