BURLINGTON, N.C. – No. 9/14 Shenandoah University earned its first-ever USA South Conference baseball championship with a 7-4 win over Christopher Newport Sunday afternoon at Burlington Athletic Stadium.
The Hornets (33-7) become one of the first two teams officially into the 2010 NCAA Tournament field with the win over CNU (23-14). After qualifying as a Pool C (at-large) team in 2009, Shenandoah earns the automatic berth to the 2010 tournament as the USA South champion.
The tournament field will be announced on Monday, May 17 with regional play beginning on May 19. SU was sent to the South Regional last season – should the Hornets be assigned to that regional again this year, they will be making a trip to fellow USA South member Methodist as the Monarchs will host that regional from May 19-23.
Other possible regional sites that Shenandoah qualifies for under the NCAA 500-mile limit include Marietta, Ohio (Marietta), Union, N.J. (Kean), Auburn, N.Y. (SUNY-Cortland) and Willimantic, Conn. (Eastern Connecticut).
In Sunday's championship, senior Jake Yocum (6-0) pitched his way onto the all-tournament team winning his second game of the tournament and third of the week. On Monday, he earned a victory in relief over Eastern Mennonite before pitching the first 6 1/3 innings of Thursday's tournament opening victory over Averett.
Yocum went the first 6 1/3 Sunday as well, striking out three and giving up two unearned runs in the seventh. Sixty-five of the 100 pitches Yocum threw on Sunday went for strikes.
After Patrick Moore hit his only batter, skipper Kevin Anderson turned to closer Kyle Scallion with the bases loaded and one out.
Scallion prevented further damage by striking out Luke Saunders and getting Parker Neal to ground into an inning-ending fielder's choice.
Shenandoah took a lead it would not relinquish with a run on one hit and an error in the second. Scott Van Dusseldorp, reached on the miscue and scored when Cory Nelson drilled a double to right center.
The Hornets extended the lead with three in the third, two in the fifth and one more in the sixth.
Jon Holcomb, Nelson and Adam Delauter all finished with two hits apiece with the first two men driving in two runs each.
Yocum, Nelson, Jesse Henry, Greg Van Sickler and Kevin Brashears all grabbed spots on the all-tournament team with Brashears adding MVP honors to his MOP honor from the Salisbury Regional last season.
Notes: The USA South championship is the ninth in school history, following men's basketball in 1996, women's hoops in 1996 and 2000, women's soccer in 1997, football in 2003 and 2004, women's lacrosse in 2005 and softball in 2008. Men's basketball, women's soccer and football were regular season titlists (all co-championships), softball won an outright regular season title while women's hoops and women's lacrosse won their respective tournaments… The baseball championship comes in the program's third-ever appearance in the title game. SU lost in 2000 and 2009, both to N.C. Wesleyan… The championship win came in the team's primary alternate (red) uniform and improves the Hornets record to 13-2 in those jerseys… For the first time in recent memory, the "final four" of the USA South baseball Tournament featured four schools from the Commonwealth of Virginia – CNU qualified for the championship appearance by knocking out Ferrum, who had knocked out Averett earlier on Saturday.
