USF baseball announces familiar face as associate head coach
USF baseball announced Alan Kunkel as its new associate head coach on Thursday — but Kunkel is no stranger to the Bulls.
He served as the assistant coach for South Florida (21-39, 7-17 AAC) from 2019-21, working primarily with the hitters.
The announcement comes after the departure of former coach Karsten Whitson on May 30.
https://twitter.com/KendallRogers/status/1666920261415837697?s=20
During Kunkel’s 2020 season, South Florida had 52 RBI and 24 extra base hits despite playing against five power house schools repeatedly in their schedule. He also helped five freshmen join the starting lineup.
In the following year, Kunkel helped the Bulls advance to the first NCAA Super Regional Tournament in program history. USF ranked as the No. 4 seed in that tournament.
Since his departure from South Florida, Kunkel served as an assistant and recruiting coach at UAB. During his singular season there, the Blazers (17-36, 8-22 C-USA) had a poor performance, only placing eight conference wins.
After USF’s season ended abruptly due to their loss to ECU in the American Baseball Championship semifinals, the return of Kunkel could provide an increase of batting average and OPS for South Florida in comparison to their opponents.
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