BRIDGEWATER, Mass. – Bridgewater State University Head Coach Greg Zackrison has been named as the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Baseball Coach of the Year.

Zackrison guided the Bears to their first MASCAC regular season and tournament championships since 2012. Bridgewater will compete in the NCAA Division III Tournament for the 15th time in program history later this week with regional play getting underway on Friday (May 20) at SUNY Cortland. The Bears are seeded fourth in the four-team Cortland Regional and will take on the host Red Dragons on Friday morning at ten.

The BSU baseball team is currently 30-13 on the season as the Bears reached the 30-win plateau for the fifth time in program history (1992, 1996, 2000, 2012).  The MASCAC regular season championship is Bridgewater’s 17th overall and the tournament title marks the Bears’ sixth since the tournament began in 2001.

Under Zackrison’s guidance, six members of the Bridgewater State baseball team garnered All-MASCAC honors in 2022 including MASCAC Player of the Year, sophomore right fielder Jay Wladkowski (Norwood, Mass.), and MASCAC Rooke of the Year, freshman second baseman Scott Emerson (Peabody, Mass.). Emerson is the Bears’ first rookie of the year since BSU Hall of Famer Steve Smith in 2005.

The Bridgewater State baseball team was picked sixth in the 2022 MASCAC Baseball Preseason Poll but the Bears defied the odds by going 17-4 against conference opponents during the regular season and then sweeping their way to the MASCAC Tournament title. The team batting average increased by 90 points from .209 in 2021 to .299 in 2022. Bridgewater’s offensive production also went up by nearly four runs per game from 2.9 a year ago to 6.7 this season.

The 2022 Bears are tied with four other teams for the NCAA Division III lead in shutouts with nine. The Bears are also ranked 14th nationally in stolen bases (111), 24th in stolen bases per game, (2.63) 34th in WHIP (1.38), 44th in walks allowed per nine innings (3.34), 45th in sacrifice bunts (27), and 50th in win-loss percentage (.698).

In 2019, Zackrison took over a baseball program that won just five games in 2018 and whose last winning season came in 2013. In just four seasons at the helm, including an abbreviated 2020 campaign, Zackrison has the Bears back in the NCAA postseason for the first time in ten years. His teams have produced a record of 59-60 during that span including a 32-20 record in MASCAC regular season play.

Zackrison is the program’s first MASCAC Coach of the Year since BSU Hall of Fame skipper Rick Smith earned the honor in 2012.