Troy baseball couldn’t recover from an early-game, 11-run Alabama State surge Tuesday, falling 12-8 in Montgomery to the Hornets.

Alabama State’s Brandon Caples (1-0) earned the win on the day, striking out four and allowing zero earned runs in 3 and two-thirds innings Tuesday.

Troy’s Robert Harris (0-1) took the loss, giving up five earned runs in two innings pitched for the Trojans.

By the bottom of the second inning, Alabama State (5-5) jumped out to a 6-2 lead, highlighted by a sacrifice RBI by Chris Biocic to give the Hornets the early 1-0 lead and a two RBI single by Cesar Rivera to spark a five-run bottom of the second for Alabama State.

In the top of the third inning, Troy responded with a five-run inning of its own.

Nick Masonia got the Trojans going with a two-run home run to narrow Alabama State’s lead to 6-3, and later in the inning, Reid Long drove in two more runs with a single to bring the Alabama State lead to 6-5.

But in the bottom of the inning, Alabama State responded with five more runs to take a commanding 11-5 lead that would hold the rest of the game.

Masonia led Troy (7-5) with two RBIs on the night and one home run.

Biocic led Alabama State with a game-high four RBIs on 1-of-4 batting.