Thanks to his work as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator of the Seattle University baseball team over the past two years, Elliott Cribby has been promoted to associate head coach, announced earlier this week by Seattle U head baseball coach Donny Harrel.
After joining the Seattle U coaching staff, Cribby helped the Redhawk pitchers lower the team ERA from 4.84 in 2013 to 4.11 in 2014 as well as improve the strikeout-to-walk ratio from 1.60 to 2.31. The improvement continued in 2015, as the Seattle U pitchers combined for a 3.60 earned run average and a 2.60 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
With Cribby as pitching coach, Skyler Genger and Tarik Skubal received Second Team All-WAC honors in 2015, with Genger leading the conference with 120 strikeouts and Skubal also earning Freshman All-America honors from Collegiate Baseball. In addition, Will Dennis was drafted in the 23rd round of the 2015 MLB Draft by the Baltimore Orioles and is currently playing for the Aberdeen IronBirds of the Class-A New York-Penn League.
"Elliott has shown an amazing work ethic in our industry and there is no doubt as our recruiting coordinator that he has established himself as one of the best in the business. Elliott will be an amazing head coach one of these days and we hope this promotion will get him more looks as he progresses at our level,” Harrel said. “Elliott will continue to lead our pitching staff, work as our recruiting coordinator and now get more involved with the business aspect of our sport. Elliott had other offers to move on as a pitching coach at bigger programs, but his dedication to the progression of our program is keeping him here. We are fortunate to have him and I look forward to working more closely with him to enhance the growth of our program."
Besides his work at Seattle U, Cribby has been involved with USA Baseball over the past two summers, serving as a National Team Identification Series coach in 2014. This summer, he was the pitching coach for the BRAVE team that won the gold medal at the 2015 USA Baseball Tournament of Stars held at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C.
The 2015 Seattle University baseball team finished with a school-record 31 victories, including a 19-8 record within the Western Athletic Conference that enabled the Redhawks to finish second in the league’s regular season standings. Seattle U advanced to the championship game of the 2015 WAC Baseball Tournament and had three players selected in the 2015 MLB Draft, the program’s first draftees since 1980.