Troy used a six-run fifth inning and some (mostly) shutdown relief pitching on the way to a 6-5 victory over Appalachian State in the Sun Belt tournament on Wednesday at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery.

The third-seeded Trojans (37-20) advance to face the winner of Wednesday’s Southern Miss-Coastal Carolina game at 4 p.m. Thursday. The sixth-seeded Mountaineers (31-20-1) drop into an elimination game against the loser of that game at 9 a.m. Thursday.

The win was also an important one in terms of Troy’s NCAA tournament hopes. The Trojans entered the Sun Belt tournament ranked in the 50s in the national RPI and a loss to the Mountaineers (RPI of 75) would have not done them any favors with the NCAA tournament selection committee.

“We just have to win,” Troy coach Skylar Meade said. “… The reality is, for this week, it’s about us. We just need to win games. … We’ve done a lot of winning here, but we need to do a lot more. … Players, coaches and support staff, we just need to keep stacking wins because in the end that’s going to take care of itself.

“… We knew it was going to be a battle, but it was a good day for the Trojans.”

Troy appeared destined for the loser’s bracket through four innings, as CJ Boyd hit a pair of two-run homers — one in the first and one in the third — to give App State a 4-0 lead. Meanwhile, Mountaineers right-hander Dante Chirico mowed down the first 12 Trojans hitters, seven of them by strikeout.

However, Troy broke out in a big way in the fifth. All-Sun Belt catcher Brooks Bryan led off with a solo homer to make it 4-1, then the next three Trojans singled to load the bases.

Shane Lewis walked with the bases loaded to cut the lead to 4-2, with still no one out. One out later, Kole Myers doubled over the center fielder’s head to score two and tie the game.

Ethan Kavanagh’s RBI single gave the Trojans the lead, then Bryan’s sacrifice fly made it 6-4. All six runs were charged to Chirico, who took the loss to fall to 4-2 this season.

“I just had to make an adjustment,” Bryan said of his home run. “… I was like ‘let me get my hands back and kind of catch what I want. I knew when we threw that curveball the first pitch and it really wasn’t close, I was like, ‘he’s probably gonna come back with heat’ because I mean, he’s been successful.

He was good, he was really good. I just wanted to get the bat head out and kind of cheat the fastball, and that’s what I got and did some damage.”

Troy starter Luke Lyon, working on three days’ rest after throwing 64 pitches Saturday vs. James Madison, went just three innings and allowed four runs on four hits. But teammates Grayson Stewart, Logan Ross and Jay Dill picked up him with one-run relief the rest of the way.

App State put runners on base in the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth, but could score only in the eighth. Joseph Zamora’s RBI single off Ross cut the Troy lead to 6-5 and put runners on first and second.

An outfield collision led to a dropped fly ball and loaded the bases, but Wall got Drew Holderbach to line out the center and then All-Sun Belt center fielder Banks Tolley to bounce out on a hard shot to third and end the inning. Dill slammed the door by striking out three of the four hitters he faced in the ninth, working around a one-out walk.

“The max (Lyon) going to go was four,” Meade said. “… You’re going into this tournament, you want to set the right tone. Luke’s a ‘right tone’ guy. We debated different things and we might have to get real weird in this tournament; everybody has to. And we’ll figure that out as we go.

“But if you need the right vibe for the team, you need a guy that’s an all-conference player, a guy that has a great plan, that pitched a (complete game) against them the last time. We weren’t expecting a complete game, but we wanted to go him with him.”

Stewart (4-2) got the win with two scoreless innings, striking out four and allowing two hits and a walk. Ross allowed a run in three innings with three Ks, with Dill picking up his third save.

Troy first baseman Will Butcher had a quiet day at the plate — he went 0-for-2 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch — but made perhaps the defensive play of the game in the third. With two on and two out and App State already up 4-0, Adam Quintero lofted a high pop-up behind the first-base dugout, but Butcher made a lunging catch to end the inning as he slammed shoulder-first into the low wall.

“It was as tough a play as you’ll ever see slamming into that wall,” Meade said. “… Luke makes a quality pitch, a little 90-mph fastball in and no one thinks that ball is getting caught. … He makes a tremendous play to get us out of that inning.

“It kept the game at bay. You can’t let that game get to six or seven, or it’s curtains. We kept it at four. … Because of that play, in my opinion, we were able to do what we did and get that win.”