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Head
Coach Jay Messina
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. '77
Second season
Jay Messina begins his
second season as head coach of the Cougar baseball program. Last
year in his first season, Messina led the Cougars to an 18-23
record, including a 12-15 mark in the Central Atlantic Collegiate
Conference.
Messina became the Cougars' head coach in 2009 after serving five seasons as an assistant coach at Caldwell College. An excellent
teacher of the game, Messina has played a major role in the Cougars’
success, especially at the plate. Since his arrival, the Cougars
have batted over .300 as a team in three out of six years while
leading the CACC in batting twice, in 2005 and 2007. Also, under
Messina’s tutelage, Hasani Whitfield was named the CACC Player of
the Year in 2005 and Adric Saxon led the nation in runs batted in
per game in 2007. The Cougars' success at the plate has led to a
pair of CACC titles and three appearances in the NCAA Northeast
Region Tournament during Messina's tenure as an assistant.
Messina joined the Cougars in 2004 after serving as head baseball
coach at Essex Catholic High School for seven years until the school
closed in 2003. He also has been involved in coaching Little League
and American Legion baseball for 22 years.
Messina graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1977 with a
degree in accounting. In addition to his coaching responsibilities
with the Cougars, Messina works as a certified public accountant in
Bloomfield, N.J. He currently lives in Belleville, N.J.