| Title: | Assistant Coach |
| Phone: | 717-948-4366 |
John Cleary serves as the pitching coach for Penn State Harrisburg baseball and will begin his second season on head coach Ryan Bown's staff in 2023-24.
His first season saw Penn State Harrisburg host an NCAA Regional for the first time after winning a program-record 34 games in 2023. Cleary helped lead the Lions to their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament after winning a third straight United East Championship by rolling to a 27-7 victory over Penn College in the conference tournament’s deciding contest. Penn State Harrisburg won six games over nationally-ranked opponents the likes of Salisbury (twice), Arcadia (twice), Rowan, and Randolph-Macon, and ranked top-10 nationally in numerous offensive statistical categories, including batting average, walks, scoring, runs, on-base percentage, sacrifice flies, slugging percentage, and hits. Penn State Harrisburg hosted No. 2 Salisbury for a best-of-five NCAA Regional Series, highlighted by a 12-11 walk-off victory over the Sea Gulls in the second game of the series. The Lions finished the season ranked No. 30 in the ABCA/Collegiate Baseball National Poll and received 23 votes in the final D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 Poll of the year.
With help from Cleary, nine players, including two of his pitchers, combined for 15 all-region honors in 2023. Kevin Lehner (1T), Josh Berzonski (2T), Fisher Druck (2T), Lucas Floyd (2T), Brendan Henn (2T), Dallas Hite (2T), Matt Parks (2T), Carlos Irizarry (3T), and Maddux Ryan (3T) earned ABCA/Rawllings All-Region accolades, while Lehner (1T), Parks (1T), Ryan (2T), Berzonski (3T), Druck (3T), and Hite (3T) secured D3baseball.com All-Region recognition. Irizarry was named the United East Rookie of the Year and was joined by Berzonski, Druck, Danny Eden, Henn, Hite, Lehner, Parks, and Ryan as all-conference honorees.