BOONE, N.C. – Appalachian State scored the go-ahead touchdown with five minutes left as Georgia State fell 17-13 Saturday at Kidd Brewer Stadium, overshadowing an outstanding performance by the GSU defense.
 
The Georgia State (3-4, 2-4 Sun Belt) defense kept the Mountaineers (6-1, 4-0 Sun Belt) bottled up for much of the day until Camerun Peoples' 10-yard run gave App State its first lead with 4:55 to play. App State managed a season-low 310 total yards, but 77 of them came on the winning drive.
 
"When you come up here and play a team like Appalachian State, you have to execute in all three phases," head coach Shawn Elliott, who played and coached at App State, said.
 
"What a tremendous effort by our defense, and for the most part our special teams were on point, but we just couldn't get untracked on offense. Our throw game was just not there. They did a great job covering us, and we couldn't find any matchups we could take advantage of.
 
"But I'm very, very proud of our effort. Our team came up here with a great mind set and fought to the very end. It was two tough teams going at it."
 
GSU held the Mountaineers, who were averaging 283 yards rushing, to 131 yards on the ground.
 
"The defense played their tails off," Elliott said. "Our front guys did a great job, and so did our linebackers. It was a tough, physical game."
 
Georgia State scored a touchdown on its opening possession, but after that, the Panthers had to settle for a pair of Noel Ruiz field goals.
 
The Panthers took the opening kickoff and drove 75 yards on 13 plays for a touchdown. Redshirt freshman quarterback Cornelious Brown IV completed four passes for third-down conversions, including the 19-yard scoring pass to Sam Pinckney, which came on 3rd-and-10.
 
After App State managed a field goal late in the first quarter, Ruiz gave the Panthers a 10-3 halftime advantage with a 23-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in the second quarter.
 
App State evened the score at 10-10 late in third quarter on Zac Thomas' touchdown pass to Henry Pearson, set up by Thomas' 55-yard completion to Malik Williams to the GSU 10.
 
But the Panthers regained the lead on another Ruiz field goal, early in the fourth quarter.
 
Brown completed just 11 of 33 passes for 152 yards and was sacked three times. Pinckney led the receiving corps with four catches for 74 yards, including his team-leading sixth touchdown catch of the season.
 
Tucker Gregg paced the ground game with 85 yards on 10 carries, but Sun Belt rushing leader Destin Coates was held to 45 yards on 13 carries.
  
The GSU defense had numerous standouts, led by the inside linebacker tandem of Trajan Stephens-McQueen (10 tackles, 2.5 TFL) and Blake Carroll (10 tackles, 2 TFL). Safety Antavious Lane had nine tackles and his third interception of the season, the most ever by a GSU freshman.
 
Jordan Strachan, Hardrick Willis and Jeffery Clark recorded sacks. Strachan's sack was his sixth of the season to break the GSU season record set by Christo Bilukidi in the inaugural season of 2010, while Willis' sack gave him 10 for his career, just one half sack behind Mackendy Cheridor's GSU career record.
 
Georgia State plays its second straight road game next Saturday at South Alabama with a 4 p.m. ET game that will air on ESPNU.