Marshall Baseball Recap
By Anthony Doria, FM88 Sports
April 13, 2025
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — The Marshall Baseball Team found itself back at Jack Cook Field for a lovely weather weekend series. The Herd (17-16) took on the Appalachian State Mountaineers (17-15), and Marshall would be plagued by inconsistency and poor luck as it would lose the series 1-2.
Game one would be all App. State as it would take the opener by score of 6-0. This would be only the second time this season that Marshall has been held scoreless in a game.
Despite a strong start for the Marshall Ace Bryce Blevins, the Mountaineers would pounce early in the third inning with two home runs, a solo shot from Jonathan Xuereb and a two-run shot by Kameron Miller. App. State would tally another run in the fourth on a sacrifice fly to get out to a 4-0 lead and continue to tee off on Blevins. Blevins would end up going 7 ⅓, giving up six runs, four of which were earned, seven hits and four strikeouts as he struggled against the top-hitting team in the Sun Belt Conference.
It was the complete opposite story on the other end of the diamond. Caleb Cross was dealing as he went the complete game, while only giving up seven hits, one walk, and four strikeouts.
App. State would tally two more runs in the eighth inning to bring the score to its final at 6-0. By the time Marshall’s bats were somewhat able to wake up, it was already too late. It took until the ninth inning on a double by Tyler Kamerer to get the Herd’s first extra base hit. Despite that, Marshall would still not get on the board.
Game two would have a different script as this time, Marshall would be the team coming hot out of the gate.
In the first inning, Ethan Murdoch would hit a triple that would score AJ Havrilla and Jackson Halter to get out to an early lead. Tyler Kamerer would then get Murdoch home on a groundout to give Marshall a 3-0 cushion. Marshall would get insurance as shortstop Maika Niu would hit an opposite-field two-run homer that gave the Herd a 5-0 lead in the third inning.
App. State would be able to score 1 run on a sac fly, but it was a silent day at the plate for the Mountaineers. Griffin Miller was able to silence the hot App. State bats. Miller went seven innings, only giving up six hits and one run, tying his season high of eight strikeouts and no walks on his way to earn his fourth win of the year.
If you are a fan of unpredictable baseball, game three was the game to watch. This game was a back-and-forth extra-innings slugfest that came down to the last batter.
Much like game 2, Marshall would strike first in the second inning as a Nolan Wilson groundout would score Murdoch to give Marshall an early lead. Marshall would later add on more as Elijah Vogelsong crushed a ball to left field for his fifth home run of the year, bringing Marshall a 3-0 Lead in the fourth inning. This was Vogelsong’s first home run since March 11th against Bradley.
Clint Moak would continue his stellar rookie campaign, as he went 4 1/3 , giving up five hits, one run, one earned run and two strikeouts.
Fast forwarding to the seventh inning, App. State’s bats woke up against the sidearmer Nicholas Weyrich. Joseph Zamora would get a sac fly that wouldn’t just score one run, it would score two as the ball went all the way to wall and the game would get tied up.
App. State wouldn’t stop the ambush of Weyrich. In the ninth inning with two outs, Miller popped up a ball that looked like it would have ended the inning, but Tyler Kamerer lost the ball in the sun, causing Xuereb to score and give App. State a 4-3 lead.
Marshall did show resilience, however, as Vogelsong would continue his strong game with a clutch RBI single to tie the game up at 4-4. Later in the inning, Harthan hit the ball to Juan Correa at first, who would throw home and get the out. Marshall head coach Greg Beals would immediately challenge the ruling as he thought the catcher’s foot was off the plate, but the call would stand, and we would go to extras.
In a game that seemed like whoever collapsed first would lose, Marshall ended up on the wrong end of it. In an attempt to save arms, Weyrich would stay in. He was able to finish the inning, but App. State would put up four runs through a mix of bunting, errors by Marshall, and sac flies to go up 8-4.
Marshall still had fight as Jackson Halter would immediately hit a solo shot to cut the lead to three. Marshall was able to get runners on first and second with one out, but Kamerer and Vogelsong were unable to deliver, and the Mountaineers would take the series with 8-5 victory.
Marshall now stands at 18-18 and 6-9 in the Sun Belt, while App State goes to 19-19 and 9-6 in the Sun Belt.
Marshall looks to avenge the series loss against their in-state rival, West Virginia University, on Tuesday at Jack Cook Field.
You can tune in to Tuesday’s contest on-air at 88.1 WMUL-FM or online at marshall.edu/wmul. FM88 Sports’ Nate Courtney and Connor Brown will be on the call with pregame beginning at 5:45 p.m. and first pitch at 6 p.m., or you can tune in to our FM 88 Sports account on X (formerly Twitter) where Ben Anderson will be live tweeting the contest.