MOBILE, Ala. - South Alabama (21-27, 10-17 SBC) fell behind early and was unable to keep up with Appalachian State (22-28, 12-15 SBC) as the Mountaineers took the series finale, 12-2.

The teams traded a pair of runs in the first inning, with the Jags' two coming on a Lucas Ismaili RBI single and a sacrifice fly from Josh Stevenson.

The Mountaineers scored two more in the top of the second and five in the fourth inning for the 9-2 lead. 

Tyler Smith pitched 4.0 innings in relief with three strikeouts and six hits allowed. Garfield Johns and Zach Stevens both tossed 0.2 innings to close the game.

Win: Jake Beaty (2-3)
Loss: Zach Willingham (3-6)

QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi

Overall thoughts: Well, today was just one of those days. You know, I thought Willingham had good stuff. Today was just one of those days. He made some mental mistakes and the wind was blowing and it was their day. Offensively, it was just one of those baseball days, man, where, every swing they take, they either hit the ball hard or found a hole, or, you know, if we're a foot to the left or foot to the right we take a couple runs off the board. It's tighter. They were on time today. And, you know, we threw some good breaking balls, and the zone was tight. They do, they did a really good job of hitting mistakes out over the middle. You know, 2-0, 2-1, you got to get back into the count. You can't throw it to a three inch portion of the plate. You gotta throw it to a bigger part. Zach lives and dies by his fastball. You know, when Zach is good, he's throwing, you know, 60% fastballs, so that's kind of the MO today. Today wasn't his day. I hate it on senior day and hate it with a chance to sweep. But, you know, we knew coming in they had a dangerous offense. I was thrilled with what we did to them the last two days, pitching-wise, and felt great coming into today with Willingham and some guys you know, Tyler Smith in behind him. He can throw the change up and throw some sliders to them. I liked who we had coming in behind him, but it was just one of those days. But I would ride with Zach Willingham any day of the week. It's one of the best kids I've ever coached in 32 years. And maybe I left him out there too long, but he's earned the right to settle in, maybe it'll get off the barrel a little bit. He earned the right to go from pitches 51 to 74 and then you realized it just wasn't going to happen for him that day. The fourth inning got away from us a little bit, there. That was the killer; the fourth inning, but they did a good job. It was, you know, that error early kind of got to us, but our guys came out to play. They were ready to go. It just didn't happen for us today. 

UP NEXT
South Alabama travels to ULM for the regular season finale, with the series opener starting Thursday at 6 p.m. 

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