GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Here are your four words to put in a sentence for this week.

Rams, Win, South Central (that's one word), Championship.

The Angelo State Rams punched their ticket to the NCAA Division II Baseball National Finals with a 5-2 win over St. Mary's on Sunday at Suplizio Field behind a complete-game win from Steve Naemark in the NCAA South Central Championship final. ASU, which earned a 15-7 win over CSU-Pueblo in the first game on Sunday to reach the final, is headed to the DII World Series for the second time in program history after also advancing to the eight-team tournament in 2007.

"This is really exciting and is something that these guys have worked extremely hard to accomplish," ASU head coach Kevin Brooks said. "We've said from the fall that this was a special group. They went out and proved what they're made of. They're tough kids who have done everything that we've asked of them at a very high level and with great effort. Generally people who are successful deserve it and I can't think of a group of guys who deserve this more than them. We all love being around each other and we want this to last as long as it can."

Naemark (10-1) struck out eight and limited the Rattlers to four hits in a 107-pitch complete-game victory and was named the NCAA DII South Central Championship Co-MVP along with Paxton DeLaGarza who hit .478 with nine RBI in the tournament. Naemark pitched in four of the five games during the tournament and had 19 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings of work. He threw 260 pitches in Grand Junction and limited the opposition to a .191 batting average.

"It got to the point where I wasn't going to be able to overpower anyone with my fastball, but I was able to hit my locations," Naemark said. "I kept them off-balance and threw pitches in situations that they were not expecting. I pitched a different way than I have been throughout the season because I didn't have a lot left in the tank but I had enough and I knew I did the entire game. I just tried to throw a good pitch every time I threw the ball."

"We haven't stopped believing in each other all year and today was another example of that," DeLaGarza said. "We fought until the end because we are all in this together."

The Rattlers scored their only two runs of the game on a two-run home run by Brooks Orton in the first inning before Naemark cruised through the final eight innings with scoreless frames. He ended three innings with strikeouts and allowed only one walk and five runners to reach base all day. While Naemark settled in after the first-inning home run, ASU responded with Cody Semler hitting a three-run home run to left field in the second inning to give the Rams a 3-2 lead which they would never give up. Semler's second home run of the season came after Derek Tyner took a leadoff walk and Brett David reached on an error. ASU added another run in the third with David delivering an RBI single to right field to score J.C. Snyder who led off the inning with a single to right and the final run of the game was brought in by Tyner who doubled down the left-field line.

With the lead, Naemark had 1-2-3 innings in the top of the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings to send the Rams on to the World Series.

"This is the apex of joy," Naemark said. "This is the best feeling in the world to pitch like that and have the team around me that I have. Everyone has worked hard and taken this goal of ours seriously since the first day in the fall. We never took a day off or thought that we couldn't do this. Everyone bought into our team and what we wanted to do. Every person on this team played a huge role in getting us to the World Series. Everyone did their part and it was incredible. We fought and fought and now we go to the World Series and keep fighting."

Tyner and David each led the Rams at the plate with two-hit performances, while Nehwon Norkeh, Sam Kohler, DeLaGarza, Semler and David Goggin each had hits for the Rams who had a 10-4 hit advantage over the Rattlers who they went 4-0 against this season.

"This is beyond anything I've ever experienced playing baseball," Kohler said. "It's unbelievable."

Angelo State is now one of eight teams who will travel to Cary, North Carolina and will go there having won 14 of its last 16 games.

"The goal is to win it all," Brooks said. "That's going to be hard with the level of teams that are going to be there with us, but we feel like we're good enough to go do it. That's the plan."


NCAA SOUTH CENTRAL ALL-TOURNAMENT
C – Austin Wallingford, CMU
1B – Dominick Bregar, CSU-P
2B – Sam Kohler, ASU
SS – Paxton DeLaGarza, ASU
3B – Manny Menocal, CSU-P
UT – JC Snyder, ASU
OF – Scott Jones, STMU
OF – Brooks Orton, STMU
OF – James Young III, CMU
P – Matt McLain, STMU
P – Steve Naemark, ASU
 
CO-MVPS
Steve Naemark and Paxton DeLaGarza, Angelo State