Baseball | June 23

DeKALB, IL – The American Baseball Coaches Association announced on Tuesday that Northern Illinois University head baseball coach Ryan Copeland has been selected as this season's ABCA/ATEC NCAA Division I Midwest Region Coach of the Year.
 
"I am humbled and honored to be named the ABCA Midwest Region Coach of the Year," said Copeland. "Our assistant coaches and support staff deserve this recognition far more than I do. The amount of time and effort they have put into developing our student-athletes this past year is remarkable. I'm proud to work alongside them each day."
 
Under Copeland's guidance the Huskies won a program-record 36 games on their way to the first Mid-American Conference title in program history. The Huskies also won a program-record 21 conference games, a 12-win improvement from 2025. NIU outscored its opponents 32-9 in its four wins at the MAC Tournament with the pitching staff posting a 1.80 earned run average. The Huskies earned the #3 seed in the NCAA Tallahassee Regional, NIU's first NCAA appearance since 1972. NIU defeated Coastal Carolina 12-10 on May 29 for the programs first NCAA Tournament win, scoring eight runs in the fourth inning.
 
NIU has set nine single-game and season program records during Copeland's tenure. This season the Huskies had a program record 277 walks and tied their 2024 fielding percentage record of .979 to go along with the 36 victories. On May 21^st NIU struck out a single-game record 18 batters in its 6-5 15-inning win over top-seed Miami at the MAC Tournament. In 2025 NIU scored a program-record 416 runs and struck out a program-record 450 batters.
 
The Huskies had four players selected to the postseason All-MAC teams in 2026 marking the first time since 2011 that NIU had four All-MAC honorees. Senior pitcher Max Vaisvila (Villa Park, Ill./Wabash Valley College) was NIU's first All-MAC First Team selection since 2013, leading the Huskies with an 8-0 record. Vaisvila was named an ABCA/Rawling All-Midwest Region pitcher on June 9. He was the National Pitcher of the Week on March 31 after throwing a complete-game, one-hit shutout of Bowling Green on March 28 with 14 strikeouts.
 
Cole Smith (Dubuque, Iowa/Bradley) and Caden Robertson (Magnolia, Texas/Central Oklahoma) were All-MAC Second Team selections while pitcher Danny Cihocki (Princeton, Ill./Lake Land College) was named to the All-Defensive Team. Smith was named a Second Team Academic All-American by College Sports Communicators on Tuesday, NIU's first since 1996.
 
This is Copeland's third ABCA Region Coach of the Year honor. He was the 2021 and 2022 NCAA Division II Midwest Region Coach of the Year as the head coach at Illinois-Springfield.
 
--NIU--