Foxhall Chosen As Nation’s Top Assistant Coach
September 01, 2021 | Baseball, Joel Coleman
MSU pitching coach’s staff helped lay the foundation for 2021 national title.
STARKVILLE – Already a national champion, now Mississippi State pitching coach Scott Foxhall is also the nation's top assistant.
Foxhall was selected as the NCAA Division I Assistant Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association, it was announced on Wednesday. He's now set to be recognized onstage at the 78th annual ABCA Convention in Chicago, Illinois, in January.
Foxhall's honor comes on the heels of his Bulldog pitching staff laying part of the foundation of MSU's 2021 title-winning club. MSU's arms shined all season, leading up to winning it all in Omaha.
Under Foxhall's tutelage, pitchers Will Bednar, Christian MacLeod and Landon Sims all racked up 100 or more strikeouts in 2021. Bednar, MacLeod and Sims became just the fourth teammate trio in Southeastern Conference history to notch triple digits in punchouts in the same season.
Virtually all of Foxhall's hurlers had a reputation for getting swings and misses this past season. The Bulldogs reached the 30-strikeout mark in all 14 regular season weekends. MSU piled up double-digit strikeouts in a program-record 21 straight games from March 24-May 1, including at least 12 strikeouts in 16 of those games.
In all, MSU struck out 10 or more batters in 51 of the 68 games in 2021. Foxhall's staff ended the year with a school-record 817 total strikeouts, while also limiting opponents to a .220 batting average.
Three of Foxhall's pitchers went on to be selected in the 2021 MLB Draft in July. Bednar became the 18th Diamond Dawg to ever be selected in the first round when the San Francisco Giants chose him with the 14th overall pick. Later, both Eric Cerantola and MacLeod were picked in the fifth round with Cerantola chosen by the Kansas City Royals and MacLeod selected by the Minnesota Twins.
Foxhall becomes the second member of Mississippi State's coaching staff to earn personal postseason accolades. He joins MSU head coach Chris Lemonis, who was named the National Coach of the Year by Baseball America.
