Entering his sixth season as the head coach, Matt Righter has elevated the expectations of the Vassar baseball program. Under his leadership, the Brewers have posted a 55-65 record with a .458 winning percentage. Additionally, the squad made the playoffs in back-to-back years, and churned out 21Â all-conference players. In addition to the on-field accomplishments, the Brewers have maintained excellence in the classroom, having been awarded the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award in consecutive years with a team GPA of 3.5.Â
Vassar earned 14 victories in 2022 and three players were named All-Liberty League. The Brewers finished the season second in the Liberty League with 31 home runs and were fifth with 245 runs scored.
In 2021, the Brewers played a compressed schedule and posted seven wins and four players received all-conference recognition. In addition, Ezra Caspi was selected ABCA All-Region Third Team.
During the 2020 season, the Brewers saw their season abruptly cut short, ending just eight games into the schedule due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. The squad had a 5-3 record, which included wins over Scranton, Rivier, a doubleheader sweep of Medaille and Cazenovia. The team also hosted a successful fundraiser during their fall 2019 inter-squad scrimmage, playing for the Gift of Life. The event raised $4000 and saw a surgeon donate a surgery to a family with a child in need.
The 2019 campaign saw Vassar with a 14-24 overall mark. Four student-athletes garnered All-Liberty League year-end honors, including Bryan Rubin '19 on the First Team.
In 2018, the squad had an 18-19 mark, advancing to the Liberty League Tournament. The team had four student-athletes named to the All-League squads, including Bobby Kinne '18, a First Team selection and four-time overall honoree. During the 2017 campaign, the Brewers went 19-19, appearing in the Liberty League Tournament in Righter's first season at the helm. Six players were recognized to All-League teams, while Evan Trausch '20 became the second Brewer in program history to be named the Liberty League Rookie of the Year.
Before his time at Vassar, Righter was the head coach at SUNY New Paltz, where he helped improve the winning percentage by 200 points in his third year while also beating conference foe Cortland twice while they were ranked No. 1 in the country. Righter recruited and mentored the SUNYAC Freshman Players of the Year in 2015 and 2016, while helping the team to its best single-season winning percentage (.553) since 2001.
Prior to New Paltz, he was the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Johns Hopkins University from 2009-14. While there, Righter assisted one of the all-time great coaches in baseball, Bob Babb. Together the two led the Blue Jays to five conference championships, five NCAA Tournaments, and one D3 College World Series. Righter mentored three players who pursued professional baseball careers, along with four All-Americans and two student-athletes who earned NCAA and D3Baseball.com Player of the Year accolades.
In the summer of 2014, Righter went abroad to serve as the head coach and advanced pitching coordinator of the Hünenberg Unicorns in the Swiss Baseball Federation. He helped implement strategies for the squad while helping the Unicorns to the National League B playoffs for the first time in team history.
Righter was a two-sport star during his playing days at Johns Hopkins from 2000-04, serving as team captain for both the baseball and basketball squads. He was named JHU Male Athlete of the Year in 2004, when he was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 21st round. Righter pitched in the Tigers organization for five seasons, reaching as high as AAA Toledo before focusing on his coaching career.
A 2004 graduate of Johns Hopkins with a degree in international relations, he earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix during his time as a professional baseball player in 2009.
His father, Ron, is the all-time winning basketball coach in Clarion University history, having won 402 games over a 26-year career. Righter and his wife, Alison, welcomed their first child, daughter Mikaela Joyce, to the Brewer family in the fall of 2018.
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