LaRosa named Atlantic Region Coach of the Year

West Chester University second-year head baseball coach Mike LaRosa, a Bishop Shanahan High School alum, was named the Atlantic Region Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), it was announced Tuesday morning.

LaRosa led his squad to a 36-15 record and an Atlantic Region championship in his second season in his alma mater’s dugout. With that championship came the program’s fifth trip to the NCAA Division II National

Championships in Cary, N.C. where the Golden Rams were a national semifinalist as one of the final four teams left standing.

LaRosa graduated from West Chester University in 2005 where he was an allleague second baseman. Before that, LaRosa played his high school ball at Bishop Shanahan (’01).

LaRosa joins former skipper, Jad Prachniak, who he succeeded as head coach, as the only two ABCA regional coach of the year recipients from WCU. Prachniak won the award twice in 2012 and 2017.

West Chester finished second in the PSAC Eastern Division for the second straight year and earned the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Regional with the right to host both the regional and Super Regional. The Golden Rams won both in dramatic fashion with a pair of doubleheader sweeps on the last day of the three-game series’ with Seton Hill and then East Stroudsburg one week later.

Those heroics got West Chester to the national championships, where the Golden Rams once again dropped their first game. However, LaRosa rallied his troops for two consecutive days to stave off elimination and reach the semifinals of the eight-team tournament. All three rounds of the NCAA Tournament combined saw West Chester to 6-1 in elimination games during the postseason.

In two years at the helm of the diamondmen, LaRosa is 56-26 (.683). Overall, including nine years at Widener University, LaRosa is 251181-2 (.581).