Andrew Franco's pinch-hit triple in the sixth inning brought in the tying and go-ahead runs in Sunday's 4-2 win over Furman (photo courtesy of Marc DeRose) Game statistics

Mountaineers Complete Sweep of Furman
by Appalachian Sports Information

May 11, 2008 - BOONE, N.C. – Andrew Franco’s pinch-hit, two-out, two-run triple in the sixth inning was the difference as Appalachian State University baseball completed a three-game sweep of Furman with a 4-2 victory on Sunday afternoon at rainy, blustery Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.

With its ninth win in its last 10 games and fifth-straight Southern Conference series triumph, Appalachian (29-23, 13-11 SoCon) moved back into a tie for sixth place in the conference standings with archrival Western Carolina. However, by virtue of its series win over WCU, ASU holds the tiebreaker for the sixth and final guaranteed spot in the double-elimination portion of next week’s Southern Conference Tournament. The league’s seventh-through-10th-place teams must participate in a single-elimination “play-in” round to join the eight-team, double-elimination field.

Furman (29-20, 15-9 SoCon) came into the weekend boasting a school-record 13-game SoCon winning streak and atop the conference standings but now finds itself in third place and in danger of falling into the tournament’s play-in round itself.

The Mountaineers trailed 2-0 through four-and-a-half innings, thanks to solo home runs by FU’s Marcus Rose and Joey Rodgers in the first and second stanzas. However, the Apps’ rally started in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI double by Wes Hobson that cut the deficit to 2-1.

The score would remain 2-1 until the sixth, when Franco drilled a 1-0 pitch off the wall in left center field that brought home Isaac Harrow and David Towarnicky with the tying and go-ahead runs. Making the pinch-hit triple even sweeter for Franco was the fact that it came on Senior Day. Franco was one of six Mountaineer seniors to be honored prior to their final game at Smith Stadium.

Appalachian added an insurance run in the eighth on an RBI single by Towarnicky.

ASU’s Adam Mills, Jason Rook and Garrett Sherrill closed out the game with 3.1 innings of one-hit relief. Mills needed just two pitches to get the Mountaineers out of a two-out, two-on jam in the sixth and picked up the win to move to 3-0 on the season. Sherrill tossed two hitless innings for his sixth save.

Hobson, Rook and Jason Wallace recorded six of the Apps’ nine hits with two apiece.

Furman’s Ian Parry served up Franco’s go-ahead triple and suffered the loss to fall to 4-3 on the campaign.

Appalachian travels to UNC Asheville on Tuesday for a 3 p.m. contest before closing out the regular-season with a three-game series next Friday and Saturday at Wofford.