The Mountaineer baseball team traveled to Jonesboro, Arkansas to face off against Arkansas State in a three game weekend series.
The Black and Gold lit up the scoreboard, winning the first matchup 20-7.
Twenty runs are the most App State scored against a Sun Belt opponent.
Graduate student first baseman Drew Holderbach singled in the third inning to extend his on-base streak to 35 games. Senior outfielder Banks Tolley answered with a two-run home run, his 15th of the season, giving the Mountaineers a 3-2 advantage. Junior catcher Braxton Church matched Tolley, and hit his own two-run home run to extend the lead to 5-2.
App State scored another run after a double steal thanks to a Red Wolves error.
Junior infielder Joseph Zamora recorded an RBI bunt single to extend the lead to 7-2 after the third inning.
Arkansas State scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth making the score 9-7.
The Black and Gold responded with three runs in the top of the sixth, extending their lead to 12-7.
Zamora hit a two-run home run in the eight making the score 14-7.
The Mountaineers closed the game out with six runs in the ninth on mostly walks.
There was strong pitching on the day thanks to the trio of redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Bradley Wilson, senior right-handed pitcher Grey LaSpaluto and junior right-handed pitcher Cody Little.
The Mountaineers won the second game of the series on Saturday 12-3.
Tolley started the game strong with a two-run home run to give the Black and Gold an early 2-0 lead at the end of the first inning.
The Red Wolves responded with a three-run home run in the second inning to take a 3-2 lead.
Tolley answered with another two-run home run, taking the lead back for the Mountaineers. Tolley has 17 home runs on the season, tying the program record for most home runs in a single season.
The Mountaineers led 4-3 after three innings.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Jackson Steensma helped the Mountaineers by allowing five hits.
In the fifth inning, Holderbach recorded an RBI double, which was followed by an RBI from senior outfielder Xavier Moronta to take a 6-3 lead.
The Mountaineers kept piling it on with a four-run sixth inning to extend the lead to 10-3.
The Black and Gold scored two more runs in the seventh inning. The inning was highlighted with an RBI triple from redshirt junior Austin St. Laurent.
The Mountaineers tied the Red Wolves in the series finale on Sunday 12-12.
App State took a 2-1 lead in the second off of RBIs from St. Laurent and Holderbach.
The Red Wolves scored in the bottom of the second to tie the game at 2. Holderbach recorded an RBI single in the fourth to extend his on-base streak to 37 games, and give the Black and Gold a 3-2 advantage.
In the fifth inning, Arkansas State scored six runs to take a 8-3 lead. The Mountaineers responded with three runs in the seventh to decrease the deficit to 8-6.
Moronta drove in two runs in the eighth, making the score 9-8. Arkansas State followed with a three-run home run to take a 12-8 lead heading into the ninth inning.
The Mountaineers brought the game within four trailing 12-9 in the top of the ninth inning. Senior outfielder CJ Boyd came up huge for the Mountaineers with a four-run home run, knotting the ball game at 12.
Neither team found home plate in the tenth and final inning, ending the game in a tie, the first time the Black and Gold has tied a team since the 2010 season.
The Mountaineers also recorded their first unbeaten road series since 2018.
App State will be back in action on Tuesday to face ETSU. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m. and the game can be streamed on ESPN+.
