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Haeger Etches Name Deeper into MU Record Books
LIVONIA, Mich. – Greg Haeger etched his name further into the annals of Madonna University baseball with the Crusaders’ 6-1 game one victory at Aquinas College Saturday afternoon. The win, although extremely important in a very tight race for conference supremacy, had a bit more than league standings attached to it when all was said and done. It marked the 300th career victory in Haeger’s 11-year career. The coveted milestone has been reached by very few of Haeger’s peers. He is just the second head coach of any sport in MU history to reach 300, joining Hall of Fame volleyball coach Jerry Abraham (809 career wins). And he is just the third coach in Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) baseball history to hit 300, joining former Aquinas College skipper and NAIA Hall of Famer Terry Bocian and former Siena Heights boss Gordy Thiessen as well as current SHU head coach John Kolasinksi. He is the second active WHAC coach with 300 wins and has increased his gap as the school’s winningest baseball coach over Mike George, the only other skipper to pilot the Crusaders, who retired after the 1996 season. Haeger took over the MU program in 1997 as the youngest head baseball coach in the league and promptly guided the team to a 25-30-1 record and NAIA Sectional championship as well as Sectional Coach of the Year honors. That same season, Haeger was recognized as the NAIA Great Lakes Regional Coach of the Year. In 2005, the most successful season in MU baseball history, Haeger guided the team to a 40-16 overall record and the teams first WHAC regular season championship. The ’05 squad became the fifth to earn a NAIA regional tournament appearance and garnered a spot in the NAIA top-25 for the first time in school history, peaking at No. 18 for most of the season. For his efforts, Haeger earned his first of back-to-back WHAC and American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Coach of the Year honors. Under his guidance, Madonna has won 20 or more games in all but one season and have eclipsed the 30-win mark three times and 40 wins once. Haeger’s 2006 squad won the league regular season and tournament championships as well as the school’s first ever NAIA Region VIII baseball title, advancing within one game of their first ever trip to the NAIA World Series. Haeger has now coached a streak of two consecutive conference Players of the Year in Ben Ramsey (2006) and Joe Greene (2005); Conference Pitcher of the Year Derek Dufrane (2005); and has had two players in the last three years (Ramsey in 2006 and Dufrane in 2005) earn NAIA All America honors with first and second team selections, respectively.
After an outstanding high
school career at Detroit Catholic Central, Haeger was named Michigan Amateur
player of the year, and was drafted by the Detroit Tigers following his senior
season. Haeger put his professional dreams on hold to accept a baseball
scholarship and pursue his education at the University of Michigan. Following the injury, Haeger returned to Michigan to complete his degree in general studies in 1994. Later that year, he joined the Madonna staff as an assistant coach and pitching instructor. His impact on the pitching staff was immediately noticeable as the team’s ERA finished in the top 15 of the NAIA in two of his three seasons as pitching coach. In addition, he was part of Madonna’s first sectional championship team in 1995. Greg Haeger has built a nationally recognized baseball program at Madonna, player-by-player, practice-by-practice, win-by-win. All 300 of them are special, but today made history.
Let the countdown to 400
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