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by DAVID SENTENDREY
Intern Sports Reporter
For many athletes at Appalachian State University, a senior season is an opportunity to leave a mark on a program and achieve one’s goals.
ASU baseball is no different.
Senior third basemen Isaac Harrow now leads the Mountaineers in all-time RBIs with 177.
Harrow also leads the team this season in batting average, home runs, triples, doubles, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
“This being my last
year and everything, I just wanted to come out and have a great year,”
Harrow said. “I didn’t want to expect too much because if you expect a
lot you might start pressing things. But I’m definitely happy with how
things are going.”
During
the Mountaineers’ Tuesday game against North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical State University, ASU trailed 6-5 in the bottom of the eighth
inning.
Harrow
led off the inning with a single to center field, then stole second
base on the first pitch of the next at-bat en route to sparking a
four-run inning.
The Mountaineers went on to win the game 9-6.
“I knew I had to get on base to start things up because if I got on base, we were stealing bases really well off the pitcher,”
Harrow said. “I’m just glad that ball dropped in.”
Hitting in the heart of Appalachian’s batting order has given Harrow the opportunity to constantly be a reliable hitter for ASU.
“He’s
been that guy we lean on to produce big hits for three years now and
he’s a clutch player,” head coach Chris Pollard said. “He’s a great
hitter and I think he’s going to get a chance to go on and play at the
next level.”
Along with Harrow, pitcher Zach Quate and center fielder Rand Smith have brought attention to the Mountaineer seniors.
“It’s
all those guys, every one of those guys is having a great year,”
Pollard said. “There’s nothing more as a coach that you want than for
your seniors to have big years.”
Quate has set an ASU record with nine consecutive saves, while Smith has set an ASU record with a 27-game hitting streak.”
“The seniors this year, we knew we had to lead this team,” Harrow said. “We have a good group of seniors.”
Harrow, Quate and Smith are all looking at the possibility of playing baseball professionally after graduation.
Along
with baseball, Smith played football and basketball in high school, but
chose baseball in college when contemplating his chances to perform
professionally after college.
“Hopefully
I’ve got the opportunity to move on and play professional baseball
after college, and that’s what it boils down to, what I can do after
college,” Smith said.
Although he has stood out on the baseball diamond, Smith still claims that he was a pretty good quarterback in high school.
As the season winds down for the seniors, two goals stood out in their minds.
First, they said they wanted to continue their winning ways, which they attribute mostly to the growth of mustaches.
Second, they want to finish their ASU baseball careers having accomplished as much as possible.
“In
baseball, you’re not going to win every game, there’s going to be ups
and downs,” Harrow said. “I think that what we’ve been doing really
well lately is when we get down, we don’t panic, we just keep fighting
back. We know we have the potential to win every game, we just need to
keep producing.”
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