BECKLEY - For the first time since the Mountain East Conference came into existence, the West Virginia State baseball team had to watch someone other that itself hold aloft the conference's championship trophy.
Nine runs over the third and fourth innings pushed Shepherd past the Yellow Jackets on Sunday afternoon and gave the Rams a 19-2 win and the MEC title at Linda K. Epling Stadium. It is the Rams' first conference baseball title since winning the 2012 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference crown.
"We battled hard," Yellow Jackets coach Sean Loyd said. "A lot of teams would be happy to be able to be in the championship game. We were happy to be in the championship game, but we wanted to perform better.
"It wasn't because we didn't want to and it wasn't because we didn't do the work we needed to all year to put us in this position," he added. "I just told them you can't win them all. Sometimes this happens and it just so happened to be in a championship game when it happened. We just didn't have it today."
Sunday's loss ended West Virginia State's season. The Atlantic Region qualified seven teams for the NCAA tournament and State was ranked seventh entering the weekend, but Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion Chowan jumped over the Yellow Jackets for that No. 7 spot.
The Yellow Jackets (32-15) hoped to repeat their 2015 MEC championship round performance. State beat the Rams (37-13) in a pair of 10-inning games last year to earn its second straight conference title.
State took a quick lead Sunday in the top of the first when Trayvis Patterson's sacrifice fly scored Dylan Grimm for a 1-0 advantage. But after State jumped out to the lead, the Rams sailed past the Yellow Jackets after that. After Christian Hamel's RBI single to left tied the game in the bottom of the first, Shepherd took the lead on a Jacob Carney RBI single to right.
Then came the scoring deluge. Mike Brown's double to right center scored Daniel Heleine. Then, when State starter Dustin Kincaid tried to intentionally walk Brandon Kirk, Kirk poked a single up the middle on the second pitch to score Hamel. Zach Bard - starting at shortstop after usual starter Tre Porter was ejected Saturday and forced to sit Sunday - doubled to left to score two. Kirk and Bard's hits both came with two outs.
In the fourth, after Ron Farley's RBI single, Brown and Bard each smacked two-run singles to put the game out of reach.
"They hit mistakes," Loyd said. "And you have to be able to locate the ball and throw the ball down in the zone. If you make mistakes, they don't miss them. Not everyone can knock the daylights out of it.
"We didn't locate well," he continued. "It's not because we didn't have guys we think were capable. Sometimes, it just happens that way, and when one guy can't do it, the next guy struggles with it. Then it becomes a thing where you're pitching a little more tentative than you'd want."
Kincaid, who pitched State to its first win of the tournament on Thursday, lasted just 2 2/3 innings Sunday. He allowed six runs, all earned, on nine hits with a strikeout and a walk in the loss. Sunday was the fourth time in four games this year that West Virginia State had allowed double-digit runs to the Rams. Shepherd beat WVSU 16-4 and 13-7 in a March 24 doubleheader, then beat State 11-5 on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets couldn't solve Shepherd starter Jamie Driver, who gave up just one earned run on six hits over seven innings, striking out four and walking one.
"He pitched a really good game," State center fielder Jamison Jones said. "He was mixing up his pitches really well and getting ahead in the count. We hitters were hitting his pitches that he wanted."
Jones, closer Curtis Johnson and left fielder Justin Graham were named to the all-tournament team for West Virginia State, along with Notre Dame catcher Julio Rosales, West Liberty pitcher Mark Smyth and designated hitter Michael Adams, and Shepherd's Porter, Driver, Heleine and Carney. Carney was named tournament MVP.