USD Baseball 2007

HEAD COACH RICH HILL

San Diego's Rich Hill has built the USO Toreros into one of the most successful Division I baseball programs on the West Coast. The 2007 spring season will be Hill's 20th year as a head coach at the collegiate level , and ninth at USO, having enjoyed 16 winning seasons in 19 years . Since taking over at USO in 1999, Hill has been remarkable in leading the Toreros to eight consecutive winning campaigns, re-writing the school record book en route to claiming back-to-back West Coast Conference Championship titles in 2002 and 2003, and guiding the Toreros to their first-ever at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament in 2006. In the 2006 season , not only did Hill lead USO back to the post– season , but he also helped guide the Toreros to their highest national ranking at No. 8 in the Collegiate Baseball top-25 poll on Feb. 2, 2006. Other milestones that Hill achieved during this historic season was the team recorded its first win over a No. 1 ranked opponent as they swept the defending national champion Texas Longhorns in the opening weekend . Hill became the third coach in the history of the WCC to eclipse the 200 conference wins mark, and he is one win shy of the 600 career wins total with an overall coaching record of 599-420-3. Under his leadership San Diego has averaged 33 wins per season , including winning a school record 39 games in 2002 , a year in which Hill was honored by his peers as the WCC Coach of the Year. Hill became one of the youngest coaches in collegiate history to reach 500 career victories in 2003, taking USO into postseason play and a second consecutive NCAA Regional appearance. Scheduling the nation's top competition, Hill owns a 266-201- 3 (.569) overall record as San Diego's manager. In turn , Hill has brought the school national notoriety, earning a No. 8 national ranking by Collegiate Baseball (2/13/06) , its highest in school history. Following a 35-21 season in 2004, seven of Hill's eight graduating seniors signed professional contracts . That same season a record 10 USO players were recognized as AII-WCC performers, with five players being selected in the '04 MLB First Year Player Draft. This past June six more Toreros were drafted and signed by Major League clubs. The 44-year-old Hill is a proven winner. He has a record of success in each of his three head coaching stops - first at his alma mater Cal Lutheran . In his first head coaching job as the manager at Cal Lu, he won 83% of his games during his final three seasons (1991-93) . Hill led Cal Lutheran to a record of 194-76 (.719) over six seasons, including two World Series appearances . His 1992 squad posted a 43-6 record before falling a couple of outs shy of the NCAA Division Ill title, while the 1993 team finished first in the Western Region with a 32-7 record. Under Hill's guidance, the Kingsmen knocked off Division I opponents such as USC, Pepperdine, San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge. During