By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          For 13 seasons, Craig Gibson and Brent Shade built Mercer into a reputable mid-major college baseball program, one that had the respect of the major programs.

          After all, Mercer entered the season as one of four Division I teams to have won at least 35 games 10 straight years, with Vanderbilt, LSU, and Florida State. Barring a run of earth-shaking proportions, Florida State (30-22) will drop from the list shortly, and LSU (34-22) is a third seed at the regional in Oregon.

          Shade had been part of all of them, as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, and then also as associate head coach.

          No more.

          The school has yet to make an announcement, but Shade’s name was deleted from the baseball staff list on the Mercer athletics website as well as on the baseball page’s coaches list Wednesday afternoon. College baseball writer Kendall Rogers of D1baseball.com tweeted the move Tuesday in a short list of similar decisions at other programs.

          Speculation on Shade’s future grew with Mercer’s 0-2 trip to the Southern Conference Tournament, where they lost two games on walk-off homers, having the lead after seven innings in both games.

          This was the second straight year the staff had an ERA of above 5.00, at 5.32 after 5.12 in 2019 and fifth straight year opponents hit at least .272.

          In the shortened 2020 season, though, the Bears were leading the conference with a 2.69 ERA in 16 and an opponent’s batting average of .217 when it shut down.

          Mercer went 452-262 with Shade on the staff, winning 63.3 percent of the time.

          That includes the 2010 Atlantic Sun tournament championship and trip to the Atlanta Regional. The Bears went 38-24, starting their stretch of 35-win seasons. Mercer won 39 games in 2017 and 2011, and the Bears set a program record by going 43-18 in 2013, winning  the A-Sun regular-season title and tournament championship, earning a trip to the Starkville Regional.

          In the past few seasons, Mercer has re-set pitching records in a variety of categories, including strikeouts.

          Mercer was the regular-season champ in the A-Sun once and three times in the Southern Conference.

          In 2018, Austin Cox (FPD) and Robert Broom were each picked in the top 10 rounds of the MLB draft, with Christian Vann going in the 25th round.

          Shade became Mercer’s third pitching coach in three season in June of 2008, coming to the Bears after four seasons on the staff at Furman. The Toledo, Ohio native played at Missouri Valley College and Defiance College, and started his college coaching career in 2003 at Heidelberg, a Division III program in Ohio where he earned his Master’s.

          Shade and wife Whitney have two sons.