The WSU baseball team is celebrating their 30th year of being a division one team in 2018, and ever since their first year in 1988 they have been a consistent staple of success.
The team had a winning record in their first division one season, and by the next year they had compiled a 45 win season, the second most wins ever for a WSU baseball team.
In 1992, the Raiders joined the Mid-Continent Conference and immediately had success. They won 40 games that season, and in 1994 they received their first ever division one NCAA tournament berth.
Followed by another NCAA tournament bid in 1995, the Raiders then began to struggle for the next several seasons. Between 1996-2004, WSU only had a winning record twice, and failed to make the NCAA tournament.
In 2005 a momentous change was made to the program. Rob Cooper took over as the head coach for Ron Nischwitz, who had coached the Raiders for 30 seasons, including during their transition into division one.
In only Cooper’s second season has head coach, the Raiders made the NCAA tournament in 2006, and then again in 2009.
After a 25-30 season in 2013, Cooper was replaced by Greg Lovelady, who would be at the helm for arguably the most success in the program’s history.
In 2015, WSU won 43 games and received a bid to the NCAA tournament. They then went on to win two games in the tournament, the most ever in WSU’s history. 2016 saw much of the same, with the team winning 46 games, the most ever for a WSU division one program.
2017 got off to a surprising start when coach Lovelady chose to accept the head coach spot at the University of Central Florida, which led to WSU hiring their hitting coach Jeff Mercer as the manager. In his first season, Mercer led WSU to a 38-21 record, including a 23-5 home record.
Wright State baseball has produced several MLB draft picks, including Joe Smith, Brian Anderson and Sean Murphy.
