Podcast: Sacred Heart coach Pat Egan on program rebuild

Pat Egan led Sacred Heart to a program-record 35 wins last season. (Kyle Prudhomme/NEBJ)

Pat Egan is a rising star in the New England college baseball coaching ranks.

In his second season as head coach at Sacred Heart University last spring, he led the Pioneers to a program-record 35 wins and a return to the final round of the NEC Championship for the first time since 2017.

Sacred Heart captured the program’s first regular-season conference title at the Division I level. Egan took over a program that won just 12 games in 2022 and managed to win 63 games over his first two seasons.

“I think part of the reason we started to have some success early on was because of the fresh start, fresh slate,” Egan said. “We were going to leave all that other stuff in the past.”

WATCH THE PODCAST WITH PAT EGAN

Egan explained his recruiting philosophy, which primarily consists of bringing in high school players from the Northeast.

“We’re going to recruit primarily 95 percent high school kids,” Egan said. “That’s how we’re going to build our program out. You can call it old school, right? That doesn’t seem to be the model nowadays in any sport. But that’s kind of the foundation of what we wanted to do.

“From a recruiting philosophy standpoint, we’re going to stick in the Northeast region, That’s kind of been our m.o. We have definitely reached out into Massachusetts a little bit more.”

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