UPDATE 08/06/18: Louisiana-Lafayette has officially announced Roberts’ hiring. He will serve as the Ragin’ Cajuns’ associate head coach. Mike Reuchel has been named the interim head coach at Buffalo.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Mike Roberts is expected to be named the new assistant coach at Louisiana-Lafayette, sources have confirmed to JWOS.
Roberts spent the 2018 season as the head coach at Buffalo, and will leave the Bulls to join head coach Gerry Glasco and the Ragin’ Cajuns program. During Roberts’ sole season at Buffalo, he led the program to a 16-31 record, a seven-win improvement over the previous season.
Prior to being hired at Buffalo, Roberts spent a pair of seasons at Washington as the Huskies’ pitching coach and helped guide the program to the Women’s College World Series in 2017. In that campaign, the Huskies’ pitching staff posted a team ERA of 2.38 and allowed fewer than three runs per game, on average, in the NCAA tournament.
Roberts’ coaching resume also includes a single season’s-stint at Oregon as the pitching coach, as well as three years at Green Bay and time at the high school level.
In addition to his collegiate positions, Roberts has been a coach for the New Zealand national team since 2016. A native of Auckland, New Zealand, Roberts is a former men’s fastpitch pitcher and champion.
At Louisiana-Lafayette, Roberts joins a Cajuns squad that posted a 41-16 overall record in the 2018 season, and advanced to the NCAA tournament on an at-large bid after a second place finish in the Sun Belt conference tournament. The Cajuns’ pitching staff posted a team ERA of 1.99 on the ’18 campaign, collecting 341 strikeouts and holding opponents to a .189 batting average.
