Southern Ohio’s coaching staff to return in 2010

By Brian Boesch

The Southern Ohio Copperheads are pleased to announce that the three-man coaching staff that guided the Copperheads to their first ever Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League championship game appearance will return in 2010.

Skipper Mike Florak is set to return for his second season at the helm of Copperhead baseball. Southern Ohio has had eight different head coaches in eight years, but Florak will buck the trend in 2010. A skipper has not gone to year two with the Green and Gold, but the entire staff is scheduled to return for its second go-around.

Florak, a former player and assistant coach at Ohio University, was the manager of the Youngstown State baseball program from 1999-2007. The 2009 season with the Copperheads marked his return to coaching.

Pitching coach Chris Moore will come back for his third season with the Green and Gold. Moore is an assistant under former Copperheads’ skipper Ted Tom at Shawnee State. The Copperheads’ pitching staff boasted a 3.51 ERA, the third-lowest mark in the GLSCL, under Moore’s tutelage in 2009.

Volunteer assistant Tim Culver will also return for his second season. Culver, a former player at Fresno Pacific, acted as the club’s hitting coach. The offense finished seventh in the league with a .244 batting average.

Florak, Moore and Culver led the Copperheads to an 18-16 mark in 2009 and the organization’s fourth-ever playoff appearance. After going 2-1 in pod-play during the GLSCL Tournament, Southern Ohio fell to Cincinnati 4-2 in the championship tilt Aug. 7 in Xenia. The 2010 season gets underway in the middle of June.