SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. – The West Liberty University baseball team saw an upset bid fall short here Monday in the first game of a doubleheader at regionally-ranked Shepherd.
    Coach Eric Burkle's Hilltoppers (8-29, 7-17) saw the Rams (29-10, 19-3) pull out a 6-5 walk-off win in the opener with a game-winning home run in the bottom of the seventh before rolling to a 13-1 victory in the second game to complete the sweep.
    The Black and Gold threw a major scare into the Atlantic Region's No. 3-ranked team in the opener when they grabbed a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first and kept adding on to carry a 5-0 advantage into the bottom of the fourth.
    Coby Eckstein put WLU on the board with an RBI double in the first and pushed the lead to 3-0 with a two-run blast over the left field wall in the third inning. Colton Coss's RBI single and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Bailey McGrath made it 5-0 Hilltoppers heading to the bottom of the fourth.
    Shepherd got three runs back in the bottom of the fourth and tied it with two more runs in the fifth. West Liberty had multiple baserunners in the fifth and sixth frames but couldn't push any across the plate.
    The Hilltoppers went down in order in the top of the seventh, leaving the door open for Ram slugger Nick Atkinson to clear the wall with a one-out home run in the bottom of the inning.
    In the second game, the team had battled to a 1-1 tie going into the bottom of the fourth when Shepherd broke the game open by batting around to score six runs. The hosts tacked on five more tallies in the bottom of the fifth to put the game out of reach.
    McGrath drove in West Liberty's only run with a first-inning sacrifice fly. Doubles by Dalton Davis and Jason Schutte accounted for two of WLU's five hits in the finale.