Matt Andress tossed his first-career shutout in Friday's 5-0 win over Furman (photo courtesy of Marc DeRose) Game statistics

Appalachian Snaps Furman Winning Streak with 5-0 Shutout
by Appalachian Sports Information

May 9, 2008 - BOONE, N.C. – Matt Andress tossed his first-career shutout and Wes Hobson snapped a scoreless tie with a two-run triple in the eighth inning to propel Appalachian State University baseball to a thrilling 5-0 win over first-place Furman on Friday evening at Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium. Appalachian’s triumph ended Furman’s school-record 13-game Southern Conference winning streak.

Andress earned his eighth win of the season by outdueling Furman starter Jay Jackson, who entered the game leading the SoCon in wins (9), earned run average (2.59) and opposing batting average (.210). The aces matched each other pitch-for-pitch until the bottom of the eighth inning when ASU exploded for five runs off the Paladins’ likely high-round selection in next month’s Major League Baseball Draft.

Senior Adam Beasley opened the eighth with a bloop single to shallow right center field off Jackson. After a sacrifice bunt and a walk, Hobson drove in the first two runs of the game with a triple off the wall in right center field. Jackson then intentionally walked David Rubinstein and paid for it when Isaac Harrow smashed a 420-plus-foot home run to straightaway center field that made it 5-0.

Jackson’s very next pitch was his last of the evening, as Jason Rook chased the right-hander from the game with a double down the left field line. In all, the odds-on-favorite to be the 2008 SoCon Pitcher of the Year allowed five runs on seven hits in 7.1 innings of work and was saddled with only his second loss of the season and his first since March 28.

Buoyed by the five-run eighth, Andress completed the masterpiece by retiring three of the four batters he faced in the ninth. In all, the right-handed sophomore needed just 102 pitches to whitewash the Paladins. He scattered six hits over nine innings and struck out six while not walking a batter for his fourth-consecutive win. He has gone eight or more innings in three of those four triumphs.

With the victory, Appalachian (27-23, 11-11 SoCon) moved into sixth place in the SoCon standings, a half-game ahead of The Citadel (25-24, 12-13 SoCon), an 11-3 loser at home to Western Carolina on Friday night. The battle for sixth place is a critical one, as the seventh- through 10th-place teams in the regular-season standings must participate in a single-elimination “play-in” game to earn a spot in the eight-team, double-elimination field for the 2008 Southern Conference Tournament, which begins on May 20 in Charleston, S.C.

In addition to having its 13-game conference winning streak broken, Furman (29-18, 15-7 SoCon) dropped behind Elon (38-16, 19-8 SoCon) for first place in the SoCon standings.

The Mountaineers and Paladins continue their three-game series on Saturday evening with a 7 p.m. contest at Smith Stadium.