Southeast Missouri State Hires Sawyers As Coach

Southeast Missouri State announced Friday it has hired Andy Sawyers to be its head coach. Sawyers comes to Southeast Missouri State after spending the last two years as an assistant coach at Kansas State.

Sawyers said in a statement that he is thankful for the opportunity to take over the Redhawks.

“SEMO is a program on the rise,” he said. “The conference championships, regional appearance, and upcoming facility enhancements speak volumes about the administration’s commitment to baseball.”

Sawyers, 41, takes over at SEMO from Steve Bieser, who left last month to become the head coach at Missouri. The Redhawks went 39-21 this spring and advanced to regionals for the first time since 2002. They have won at least 35 straight games in each of the last three seasons. SEMO was led by All-American lefthander Joey Lucchesi, who went 10-5, 2.19 and led the country with 149 strikeouts in 111 innings.

Sawyers has spent the last 14 years as an assistant coach in the Big 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference, coaching at Kansas State, Texas A&M and Nebraska. He was also the head coach of Hutchinson (Kan.) CC from 2001-2002.

Sawyers graduated from Nebraska, where he played for Dave Van Horn. He began his coaching career the next year as a volunteer assistant coach at Northwestern State, before returning to his alma mater in the same capacity in 2000.

2016 COACHING CHANGES
School	Departures	Arrivals
Alabama	Mitch Gaspard	Greg Goff
Alabama State	Mervyl Melendez	Jose Vazquez
Appalachian State	Billy Jones	Kermit Smith
Army	Matt Reid	Jim Foster
Butler	Steve Farley	Dave Schrage
Central Florida	Terry Rooney	Greg Lovelady
Florida International	Turtle Thomas	Mervyl Melendez
Furman	Ron Smith	Brett Harker
Jacksonville	Tim Montez	Chris Hayes
Kentucky	Gary Henderson	Nick Mingione
Lamar	Jim Gilligan (ret.)	Will Davis
Liberty	Jim Toman	Scott Jackson
LIU-Brooklyn	Alex Trezza
Louisiana Tech	Greg Goff	Lane Burroughs
Missouri	Tim Jamieson	Steve Bieser
Nebraska-Omaha	Bob Herold
Northwestern State	Lane Burroughs	Bobby Barbier
Oakland	John Musachio	Jacke Heale, Colin Kaline
Purdue	Doug Schreiber	Mark Wasikowski
San Jose State	Dave Nakama	Jason Hawkins
South Dakota State	Dave Schrage
SIU-Edwardsville	Tony Stoecklin	Sean Lyons
Southeast Missouri State	Steve Bieser	Andy Sawyers
Texas	Augie Garrido	David Pierce
Tulane	David Pierce	Travis Jewett
Villanova	Joe Godri	Kevin Mulvey
Wright State	Greg Lovelady	Jeff Mercer
Youngstown State	Steve Gillispie	Dan Bertolini