Ravens fifth-year coach honored for guiding team to record-breaking season

RINDGE, N.H. (June 17, 2003) - Franklin Pierce baseball Head Coach Jayson King has been named ABCA/Diamond NCAA Division II Northeast Region Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.

King, a native of Canton, Mass., who now resides in Gardiner, Mass., guided the Franklin Pierce baseball team to the semifinals of the 2003 NCAA Division II College World Series after the Ravens earned the first NCAA Tournament bid in program history. The Ravens (32-17) finished the season with a No. 7 national ranking in the Collegiate Baseball magazine Division II poll and set a new program record for single-season wins for the fifth-straight year. The award is the second of the season for King, who earned Division II Coach of the Year honors from the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) as well.

Franklin Pierce captured the first Northeast-10 Conference Markey Division title in program history as it finished with an 18-9 Conference record, reaching the NE-10 Championship game for the first time. The Ravens rebounded from the loss in the NE-10 title game to post a perfect 3-0 record at the NCAA Northeast Regional to claim their first Regional title and College World Series berth after earning the No. 3 seed in their first NCAA Tournament bid in program history. Franklin Pierce was also named Division II Team of the Year by the NEIBA.

In just a short period of time, King has turned a struggling program into a regional and now national contender. King has built a program that has produced 22 All-Conference, including a school-record seven this spring, and nine All-Region players. This season, King saw Matt Weagle earn the first ABCA/Rawlings All-America honor in the program's NCAA era (since 1989) with a spot on the first team.

Weagle was also the third Raven to have earned Conference Pitcher of the Year accolades and he was also the first Northeast Region Pitcher of the Year honoree in program history.

King's program has produced three players, which have been selected in Major League Baseball's First Year Player draft over the last three years. In 2001, junior left-hander Justin Blood became the first Franklin Pierce student-athlete to be drafted by in a major sports league, when the Seattle Mariners selected him in the ninth round. In 2002, junior right-hander Chris Shank was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 23rd round.  Weagle was recently the first Division II player selected when the Saint Louis Cardinals picked him in the sixth round (185^th overall) in the 2003 MLB Draft. Another lefthander, John Learson, played two years of independent league baseball before retiring at the end of last summer.

The Ravens were not only a losing program before King arrived in the fall of 1998, but also one that lacked consistency, going through three coaches in the previous four years and totaling a mere 70 total games in their first ten years at the NCAA Division II level (1989-98).

King has led the program to a 126-97-1 (.565) record in his five seasons, with the Ravens breaking the program's single season wins record each year, including their first two 30-win campaigns in 2002 and 2003. King's Ravens capped the 2002 season by claiming the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division II Championship.

King is no stranger to rebuilding programs. In 1996, he inherited a program at UMass-Boston that was in shambles and two years later led the Beacons to a school record for wins.

In addition to his time at UMass-Boston, King was a graduate assistant coach at Springfield College and was also the assistant athletic director at Mount Ida College for two years.