BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Western Kentucky University baseball head coach Chris Finwood announced today that assistant coach Matt Myers has been promoted to associate head coach.
Myers has served as pitching coach for the Hilltoppers for the past two seasons. His staff has been instrumental in WKU’s back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, posting earned run averages in the top three of an offensively-dominated Sun Belt Conference each year. He made an immediate impact upon arriving on the Hill in 2008, as the team ERA improved from ninth in the league to second in his first season.
“Matt is certainly deserving of the promotion to associate head baseball coach,” Finwood said. “He has done a great job with our pitchers and really brings a great deal to our program every day. Matt is an outstanding ambassador for WKU and our baseball program, and we are lucky to have him on our coaching staff.”
“It’s quite an honor for me to have Coach Finwood give me this title,” Myers said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity he’s given me the last two years. What Coach Finwood, Dr. Selig and Dr. Ransdell have done for the program and for me and my family means a lot to me.”
In 2009, the Hilltopper staff posted a 5.47 ERA with 450 strikeouts and was led by Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Year Matt Hightower. At the conclusion of the season, three on Myers’ staff were chosen in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. Reliever JB Paxson was taken in the 13th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers, junior ace Matt Ridings was a 25th-round selection by the Washington Nationals and Evan Teague went in the 35th round to the Toronto Blue Jays.
In Myers’ first season in 2008, WKU had a 5.41 ERA with a school-record 479 strikeouts. Ridings became just the school’s second 10-game winner in the past 17 years, and his guidance helped the staff jump seven spots in team ERA in the conference.
Myers and Finwood have a long-standing relationship, dating back to when both were members of the coaching staff at Auburn University in 2005. Myers helped lead the Tiger pitching staff to a 3.89 team ERA that year, his first at Auburn, which was the lowest by an Auburn staff in 10 years. The team also posted 21 saves and surrendered just 169 walks during the 2005 season, the fewest walks issued by any staff in the Southeastern Conference. Myers saw four of his pitchers selected in the first 13 rounds of the 2005 MLB draft.
“I’m working for one of the best coaches in the country in Chris Finwood and also one of the best people as well,” Myers explained. “It means that much more for me to be able to work alongside a friend and someone I respect so much.”
The 2009 Hilltopper baseball season was one for the record books. The team earned its first at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament in program history and went 3-2 in the Oxford Regional as a number three seed. The three wins, including a thrilling come-from-behind victory over eighth-ranked and top-seeded Ole Miss, equaled what the program had accomplished in terms of postseason wins in the previous 89 years of Hilltopper baseball.
The Hilltoppers finished the 2009 campaign ranked 23rd in the final Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll, the program’s first national ranking since 2001. WKU finished its record-setting season at 42-20, the first 40-win season in 21 years and fifth overall. In addition, the Hilltoppers posted a 21-8 mark in Sun Belt Conference play, earning the team a share of the conference regular-season championship.
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