SAN MARCOS, Texas — Appalachian State University shortstop Matt Vernon was named second-team all-Sun Belt Conference by the league's baseball coaches, the conference announced at its pre-tournament banquet on Tuesday evening.

In his first season as a Mountaineer, Vernon led Appalachian State with a .317 batting average (13th in Sun Belt), 60 hits, 35 runs scored, eight home runs (seventh in Sun Belt), 42 RBI (tied for seventh in Sun Belt), .382 on-base percentage and .519 slugging percentage (sixth in Sun Belt). He tied for the team lead with 20 extra-base hits, ranked second on the squad with three triples and was third on the club with 10 doubles.

After hitting just .095 over his first 12 games in the Black and Gold, the transfer from Florence-Darlington Technical College hit .345 and collected all 20 of his extra-base hits and all 42 of his RBI over the final 40 games of the campaign. He put together Appalachian State's two longest hitting streaks of the season (12 and 11 games) and led the club with 18 multi-hit games and 15 multi-RBI performances. No other Mountaineer drove in multiple runs more than six times.

On the strength of his impressive junior campaign, Vernon has been invited to play summer baseball with the Chatham Anglers of the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League.

Led by Vernon, Appalachian State (18-36, 9-21 Sun Belt) went 13-17 over its final 30 games of the season and finished the campaign with more overall wins, conference wins, overall series wins (4) and conference series wins (3) than it did in its inaugural season in the ultra-competitive Sun Belt Conference in 2015. The Mountaineers also notched the most regular-season victories over nationally ranked teams in school history (3). All of App State's accomplishments came despite the fact that its roster featured 14 freshmen and 10 sophomores and true freshmen started 52 of the Mountaineers' 54 games on the mound.