Jason Altenhof extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a 5-for-6 performance in Tuesday win over Wake (photo courtesy of Marc DeRose) Game statistics

Baseball Sets School Record For Hits in 22-6 Rout Over Wake Forest
by Appalachian Sports Information

March 18, 2008 - BOONE, N.C. – On the strength of a school-record 27 hits, Appalachian State University baseball completed a season sweep of local-rival Wake Forest with a resounding 22-6 victory in Tuesday’s home opener at Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.

Thirteen different players banged out hits for Appalachian (11-8), which completed its first season sweep of Wake Forest since 1996. When ASU defeated Wake, 18-8, on Feb. 27 in Winston-Salem, its 18 runs were the most ever scored against an Atlantic Coast Conference foe. However, Appalachian well surpassed that mark on Tuesday en route to outscoring WFU by a combined 40-14 in two matchups this season.

Jason Altenhof led the onslaught and extended his ASU season-long hitting streak to 11 games with a 5-for-6, five-run performance. Jason Rook added a 4-for-4, four-RBI, four-run effort and Wes Hobson and Andrew Franco chipped three hits apiece. Franco, Isaac Harrow, Jason Wallace and Adam Beasley all homered for the Mountaineers, who had hit just 11 home runs as a team through 18 games coming in.

Despite the record-breaking offensive performance, the key to the game was the pitching performance turned in by Appalachian’s bullpen trio of Nick Terry, Adam Mills and Garrett Sherrill.

ASU was clinging to a 6-5 lead in the fourth inning when Terry entered the game in relief of starter Aubrey Edens. The southpaw put an end to the see-saw battle by limiting Wake to just one run on three hits over 3.2 innings of work and earned the win to move to 2-0 on the campaign.

Mills tossed 1.1 innings of hitless relief to up his string of consecutive scoreless innings to 16.1 and Sherrill registered a scoreless ninth to close out the Mountaineers’ third win in their last four meetings with the Demon Deacons.

After losing 44 of their previous 45 matchups versus ACC competition coming into the 2008 season, the Apps have taken 3-of-5 games from the baseball-rich ACC so far this year. They have one remaining game against a member of the ACC during the regular season, April 2 at No. 3 North Carolina.

Appalachian continues a six-game homestand this weekend when it hosts UNC Greensboro in the first SoCon series of the year for both squads. The three-game set begins on Friday at 5 p.m. at Smith Stadium.