ECU baseball names Knight new pitching coach

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - Austin Knight is ECU baseball’s new pitching coach, eighth-year head coach Cliff Godwin announced Wednesday afternoon.

Full Press Release: https://ecupirates.com/news/2021/7/7/baseball-knight-to-take-over-ecu-pitching-duties.aspx

Knight will be taking over the spot left open by Jason Dietrich, who was named the new head coach for Cal State Fullerton at the end of June.

Knight has spent the previous two years as the volunteer assistant coach, and worked alongside Dietrich.

In a statement, Godwin praised Knight’s contributions to the Pirates’ baseball program.

“We are super excited about Austin taking over as our pitching coach. He has worked tirelessly in assisting Coach Dietrich for the past two seasons and has been a huge part of the success we have had on the mound during that time. Austin is a rising star and we are pumped that he is our pitching coach.”

The ECU pitching staff was dominant on the mound in 2021, leading the American Athletic Conference in nine categories, including earned run average, strikeouts and wins. The pitching performance from the staff helped ECU secure a spot in the NCAA Nashville Super Regional in June, but the team fell to Vanderbilt University.

Knight arrived at ECU two years ago after spending the previous two years as a volunteer assistant coach at Louisiana Tech. Prior to coaching, Knight played baseball at the collegiate level at Ole Miss from 2012 to 2015.

In ECU’s press release, Knight expressed his excitement in taking on this new role.

“I have been fortunate to learn under many tremendous pitching coaches, most recently being Jason Dietrich. My goal as always is to develop tremendous relationships with these young men, and help them achieve their goals as baseball players and as men. I can’t wait to take on this challenge with our staff and team.”

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