MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A record-breaking season for App State Baseball concluded with a remarkable run at the Sun Belt Championship tournament, as the Mountaineers posted back-to-back victories against NCAA bubble teams before falling 7-5 against No. 25 Southern Miss in Saturday's semifinal round.
With several team and individual milestones achieved along the way, App State became the only Sun Belt team to prevail at least once in each of the last four tournaments. It finished the season 33-21-1 while repeating as a semifinalist in one of the nation's toughest leagues.
Eerily similar to last year's performance in the double-elimination event, the Mountaineers bounced back from a heartbreaking loss on Day 1 (Troy pulled out a 6-5 victory) to beat a rival in dramatic fashion (Drew Holderbach hit a three-run homer to break a late tie in a 6-3 win against Coastal Carolina) and then set up a first matchup of the season against Southern Miss by eliminating Troy on the strength of an explosive, chaotic inning (App State won 10-6 after breaking a 3-3 tie with a seven-run seventh that included six hits and four Trojan errors).