Voorhees College head baseball coach has decided to call Bethany College his next home. The move came as a shocker in HBCU baseball ranks as Justin Thomas was hired this past Thanksgiving holiday to lead the NCAA Division III baseball team. Thomas, an academic disciplinarian, will bring the same energy, passion, work ethic and excitement that he exhibited at Voorhees to the Bethany baseball program.
Thomas is a talented up-and-coming coach who turned around Voorhees in his first year in 2015. Thomas had done a very good job with what he had to work with, fielding a team with no depth in his first season as head coach. The Tigers finished with a record of 10-21 which was the first ten win season in five years.
During the 2016 season, Voorhees finished with the best record for the program finishing 14-23 which ties the best record since 2004.
Under Thomas, the Tigers finished the 2017 season with a 20-20 record, the best in programs history. During the season, ten student-athletes finishing with a 3.0 grade point average or higher.
Justin Thomas, a native of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, gets to coach an hour from where he grew up. Thomas played collegiate baseball for three years from 2008 to 2010 at Slippery Rock University where he received his Bachelor of Science Degree. Coach Thomas transitioned into coaching with summer college baseball stops as a pitching coach for the Tradewater Pirates of the Ohio Valley League (2011), Butler BlueSox of the Prospect League (2012), Surf Riders of the Myrtle Beach Collegiate Summer League (2013), Charlotte Crushers of the Carolina-Virginia League (2014), and interim head coach of the Genesee Rapids in the New York Collegiate Summer League in 2016. An assistant varsity and head junior varsity baseball coach at Ambridge High School in Pennsylvania for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Thomas came to Voorhees in the fall of 2014 having served as the pitching coach for Penn State Greater Allegheny. In 2013, Thomas was responsible for the pitching staff completing the season with a team earned run average of 3.79 and a United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) national tournament runner-up.
Former Claflin University ballplayer John Gauntlett, who was helping Thomas in fall ball as an assistant, was named head baseball coach to start the 2019 season.