Saturday, App State lost to Marshall by a score of 69-59. It was the final home game of the season, Senior Day for the Mountaineers and the jersey retirement of App State legend Darryl Robinson at halftime.
Junior guard Alonzo Dodd, senior forward Jalil Beaubrun, redshirt senior guard Myles Tate, graduate student guard Jackson Threadgill and graduate student forward CJ Huntley started the game for the Black and Gold.
Huntley got the App State offense started, getting a rebound on his miss and putting it back up and in.
All four of the Mountaineers’ starters celebrating Senior Day got their first points in the first three minutes.
Marshall got the game tied at 11, but Huntley connected from downtown to give the Black and Gold the lead right back. He had 10 of the Mountaineers’ first 16 points.
Marshall got their first lead of the game but App State responded quickly once again with a couple of free throws from Beaubrun.
The Black and Gold were able to find some separation in the game with another three from Huntley, who was up to 14 points in the first 12 minutes.
Marshall was not done however, and immediately responded with a 6-1 run to tie the game up at 23.
After a few minutes of little scoring, Huntley drained his fourth three of the first half to give him 17.
Marshall was able to crawl back into the game and tie it at 31 before Beaubrun made a free throw to give the Mountaineers a 32-31 lead at halftime.
During halftime, App State retired Robinson’s number 10 jersey. In his four years in Boone, Robinson scored 1,631 points and helped lead the Mountaineers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance.
Marshall came out of halftime hot with consecutive threes and grabbed a 5-point lead, their largest of the game.
The Thundering Herd kept building on their lead, getting it to 8 after a three from guard Dezayne Mingo, who was leading the team in scoring with 15.
The lead got to as much as 10, with Tate getting a pass into Huntley to end the run, and App State called a timeout.
The Black and Gold went on a 9-0 run, but Marshall was able to erase the run in just two possessions.
After catching a lob from Threadgill, Huntley was up to 27 points, which tied a career high. Beaubrun followed up with a personal 4-0 run to cut it to 4, and junior guard Dior Conners splashed a three to cut the lead to 1. It was his first points in two games after going 0-9 in the previous game against Georgia Southern.
Beaubrun was doing a lot of the offense late in the game for the Mountaineers. Marshall led by 3 but Beaubrun was up to 13 on the game.
Marshall was doing just enough to stay in the lead, hitting clutch shot after clutch shot, and the Mountaineers ran out of time on their comeback attempt, dropping their final home game of the season 69-59.
App State will hit the road Tuesday and head to Statesboro, Georgia, to take on the Georgia Southern Eagles. It will be their second game against each other in five days. The game will tipoff at 5 p.m. and will be streamed live on ESPN+.
