Royer named interim Grove City College baseball coach

Royer named interim Grove City College baseball coach

Grove City College has named Matt Royer as its interim baseball coach for the 2016 season.

Royer has spent 19 seasons as a head baseball coach at the collegiate level. He worked for five years (2003-07) as head coach at Liberty University, his alma mater. The Flames earned runner-up honors in the Big South Conference three times under Royer. He guided Liberty to three 30-win seasons, including a program-record 39 wins during the 2006 season, and eight of his players were selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

“We are very excited about the addition of Coach Royer to the Grove City College athletic department,” athletic director Todd Gibson ’02 said. “He brings tremendous collegiate coaching experience as well as an unquestioned passion for the game of baseball.”

Royer’s collegiate coaching career began in 1989 at Harper (Ill.) College. In 1990, he took over as head baseball coach at Division III Wheaton (Ill.) College and coached the team for three seasons.

Royer then built Kutztown (Pa.) University into an NCAA Division II powerhouse in 10 years as coach from 1993 to 2002. He led the Bears to the 2001 and 2002 Division II World Series after winning the North Atlantic Region crown in each season.

He earned North Atlantic Coach of the Year honors in 2001 and 2002 as well as four Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division Coach of the Year awards. Kutztown captured three division titles and two PSAC championships during Royer’s tenure and inducted him its Hall of Fame in 2010.

Most recently, Royer served as head baseball coach at Twin Valley (Pa.) High School from 2009 to 2014.
Royer earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education at Liberty and then added his master’s in physical education at The University of Arizona in 1982.