Pasquale

SLIPPERY ROCK — Zelienople resident Rich Pasquale, head baseball coach at LaRoche College since 2002, has been named assistant baseball coach at Slippery Rock University.

Pasquale, 96-76-2 in four seasons at LaRoche, will serve as the top assistant to veteran SRUbaseball coach Jeff Messer. Steve Urda will continue to serve as The Rock's pitching coach.

Urda joined Messer's staff last season as a volunteer pitching coach and also handled some assistant coach duties. Former Rock assistant Blaine Brown left the program last fall to become a volunteer assistant at the University of Maryland and was not immediately replaced.

"Rich is a positive person, a good communicator, a good recruiter," Messer said. "We're ecstatic he's coming to Slippery Rock."

LaRoche had a record of 24-134 in the five-year period before Pasquale took over. He went on to lead the program to three successive Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference playoff appearances, including a school-record 28 wins this spring.

Before coming to LaRoche, Pasquale served as an assistant coach at the University of Pittsburgh and at Penn State-Beaver.

"He's got experience at all levels and he's worked my (baseball) camps for years,"Messer said. "I feel comfortable having somebody like that run practice when I can't be there."

Messer recruited Pasquale as a middle infielder coming out of Penn-State Beaver in 1988, but Pasquale opted for Francis Marion University, a NAIAinstitution in South Carolina.

"Slippery Rock had too many middle infielders at that time,"Pasquale said. "It wasn't a good fit for me."

But it is now.

Having an opportunity to coach more games, work with Messer and move up in division are among Pasquale's reasons for joining The Rock.

"Having the chance to coach with one of the best coaches in the country is exciting to me," Pasquale said. "And this is one of the best Division IIprograms out there. The opportunity to get to the Division IIWorld Series is here."

Pasquale said Messer recruits the same type of player he recruited at LaRoche.

"We're on the same page there and that's important,"Pasquale said. "You want to get good baseball players, but you also want to get good people. Good people make great programs."

Upon accepting the SRUposition, Pasquale called every one of his LaRoche players on the phone.

"Some got back to me and thanked me for giving them the chance to play college baseball. I wanted to thank them for committing to me,"he said.

Pasquale's wife is the former Mindy Kaufman, a Seneca Valley graduate who sent 12 years as a gymnast, competing against the likes of United States Olympian Shannon Miller at the national level.

She played softball in high school and at Gannon University.

The couple have lived in Zelienople for seven years and have three children:Dominic, 6, Maura, 4 and 3-week-old Kara.