Nashville, Tn –Two days after winning Vanderbilt’s first-ever men’s national title Commodores’ head coach Tim Corbin has been named National Coach of the Year by Collegiate Baseball.
Corbin led Vanderbilt to a 51-21 record, the Dores’ second straight 50-win season and third in the last four years. The Commodores returned to Omaha for the second time in four years winning the national title in just the school’s second-ever trip to the College World Series. Corbin surpassed 600 career wins during the season and now has 517 wins as the Commodores’ head coach, second-most in program history.
Vanderbilt’s 2014 season was capped off by a 10-3 run through the NCAA Tournament. The Dores swept the Nashville Regional beating Xavier and Oregon, twice. The Stanford Cardinal pushed the Commodores to a winner-take-all Game 3 in the Super Regional before the Dores clinched the team’s second trip to Omaha.Vandy opened the College World Series with a pair of wins, topping Louisville and UC Irvine. Texas forced an elimination game by beating the Commodores before Vanderbilt eliminated the Longhorns with a walk-off win to advance to the Championship Series against Virginia. The Dores survived to win the series opener against the Cavaliers 9-8 behind a nine-run third inning. The Cavs evened the series in the second game before the Dores clinched the title on Wednesday night with a 3-2 victory.
The Commodores stole 17 bases during the College World Series to tie the all-time record set by Oklahoma State in 1955. Those 17 stolen bases ran the team’s total to 120 for the season giving VU 259 over the past two seasons, two of the three most successful seasons on the base paths in school history.
A pair of All-Americans, Dansby Swanson and Vince Conde, helped lead the way with Bryan Reynolds earning Freshman All-American status. Swanson and Conde became the 20th and 21st Commodores to earn All-American honors under Corbin. Reynolds is the 14th Commodore to be recognized as a Freshman All-American in the Corbin era.
The program continues to produce high level professional prospects with Tyler Beede joining a long list of Commodores to be selected in the first round when San Francisco chose him with the 14th overall pick. Beede continues a tradition in the Vandy starting rotation. Since Corbin’s arrival in 2003 the Dores have had at least one first round pick in the rotation. Overall, five Commodores were selected in the major league baseball draft and all five in the first 15 rounds.
The National Coach of the Year honor is the second of Corbin’s career after College Baseball Insider named him Coach of the Year in 2007. He becomes the third Southeastern Conference coach to garner the award from Collegiate Baseball in the last six years, joining South Carolina’s Ray Tanner and LSU’s Paul Mainieri.