Current Western Kentucky associate strength and conditioning coordinator Duane Hall was promoted to head strength and conditioning coordinator for the university last week, a source told the Daily News this afternoon.
Hall was in his 11th season at WKU this past athletic year, and will take over for former strength and conditioning coordinator Jim Nowell, who recently resigned.
The university has yet to make an announcement due to human resource purposes.
I spoke with Western Kentucky baseball coach Chris Finwood this afternoon and he said that he fully expects both junior catcher Matt Rice and redshirt sophomore reliever Rye Davis to be back with the program next season.
Rice was taken by the New York Yankees with the last overall pick in last week’s two-day MLB Draft, while Davis was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the 36th round of the draft.
Finwood said that both Rice and Davis should be able to highly improve their draft number with a strong season next year. Rice – an All-Sun Belt catcher and WKU’s best overall offensive hitter this past season – hit .369 with 10 homers and 65 RBI in 2010.
As for Davis, Finwood said he was surprised to see Davis drafted as late as he was – as he said that several representatives from major league clubs informed him that he could go much higher. But in any event, Finwood said he expects Davis – who will have two more years of eligibility – back next season, this time as a starter rather than a reliever. Davis was a first-team All-Sun Belt closer this past season for WKU, racking up nine saves and holding a 2.72 ERA in 33 appearances.
While WKU will no doubt lose the three seniors that were drafted last week (Matt Ridings, Matt Payton and Bart Carter), Finwood said that the squad’s already lost one of its signees for next season due to the draft.
Junior college infielder Mike Mosby was taken in the 14th round by the Baltimore Orioles, and Finwood said Tuesday that he will likely sign with the team out of high school rather than head to WKU.
WKU had one other signee from next season’s class taken in the draft, high school RHP/OF Justin Hageman of Hopkinsville. Hageman was taken in the 32nd round by the Kansas City Royals. Finwood said Monday that he did not expect Hageman would be interested in signing a major league deal at this point, given the late nature of his draft status.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to our regulary schedule blog programming.
I trust everyone had a fine week while I was away, but let’s get right back into things with a coupleof WKU baseball updates shall we.
Ridings’ road to recovery
As many of you likely already know, the Hilltoppers saw five players drafted during last week’s MLB Draft – seniors Bart Carter, Matt Ridings and Matt Payton, along with junior Matt Rice and redshirt sophomore Rye Davis.
Ridings, who was taken by the Kansas City Royals in the 41st round, seems to have the most interesting situation of any of the players drafted.
The 2010 Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year, Ridings suffered a season ending injury that required Tommy John surgery to his throwing elbow recently – severely hampering his draft stock as he was taken by the Washington Nationals in the 25th round after his junior season before deciding to come back to WKU for his senior year.
And though the situation seemed to be an utter disaster for Ridings, the WKU record-setting hurler told me this morning that he’s in high spirits and is currently focused on rehabbing his surgerically repaired elbow. Ridings said he had his surgery two weeks ago, and had his second session of rehab today.
He expects the long road to recovery to last up to 10 months, but says he’s focused and excited that a team was willing to take a chance on his as a senior.
I’ll have a full story on Ridings’ situation in Tuesday’s Daily News.
Bowling Green Daily News WKU sports blog 
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