San Francisco Dons baseball

San Francisco Dons
2025 San Francisco Dons baseball team
University	University of San Francisco
Head coach	Rob DiToma (3rd season)
Conference	West Coast Conference
Location	San Francisco, California
Home stadium	Dante Benedetti Diamond at Max Ulrich Field (Capacity: 2,000)
Nickname	Dons
Colors	Green and gold[1]
NCAA Tournament appearances
2006, 2011, 2013
Regular season conference champions
2006, 2011

The San Francisco Dons baseball team represents the University of San Francisco, which is located in San Francisco, California. The Dons are an NCAA Division I college baseball program that competes in the West Coast Conference.[2]

NCAA Tournament

San Francisco has participated in the NCAA Division I baseball tournament three times.

Year	Round	Opponent	Result
2006	Oxford Super Regional	Miami Nebraska Manhattan	L 2–11 W 5–1 L 4–6
2011	Charlottesville Super Regional	UCLA UC Irvine UCLA	W 3–0 L 3–4 L 1–4
2013	Raleigh	Rice South Dakota State Oregon	L 2–3 W 4–3 L 1–6

History

The program began play in 1962. Dante Bendetti served as the first coach in program history, serving until 1980 and winning 373 games, a mark not succeeded until Nino Giarratano (hired in 1999 after being the hitting coach at Arizona State University). The 2005 team won a program record 38 games in 56 games to go along with eight players in the all-conference team and coach of the year honors. The 2006 team went 38–21 record and won a share of the WCC conference regular season championship. They lost the tournament final to Pepperdine but were given an at large berth into their first ever NCAA tournament.

Three Dons have been selected in the first round of the MLB draft. Aaron Poreda was drafted by the Chicago White Sox 2007 Major League Baseball Draft after having a conference best ERA of 2.49 in 2006.[3][4][5] Kyle Zimmer became the second Don to be a first round MLB draft selection in 2012, with Tyler Beede became the third in 2014.

USF began receiving reports of sexual misconduct and psychological abuse from the baseball team in late 2021, attributing these allegations eventually to assistant coach Troy Nakamura and firing him in January 2023. Two months later, it was reported that Nakamura was permitted access to the baseball facilities by Giarrantano, and a class action was filed against both Nakamura and Giarrantano the following March by three anonymous players. Two days after the suit was filed, Giarrantano was fired with assistant coach Mat Keplinger becoming interim head coach.[6] The following season, Rob DiToma, then head coach of the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights baseball team, was hired as new head baseball coach.[7]

See also

• List of NCAA Division I baseball programs

References

1. "Graphics Resources | University of San Francisco Marketing Communications". Retrieved March 4, 2019.
2. https://usfdons.com/sports/baseball
3. "University of San Francisco Athletics – Aaron Poreda – 2006–07 Baseball". Usfdons.com. October 1, 1986. Retrieved April 19, 2014.
4. "Aaron Poreda". Jewish Baseball News. Retrieved April 19, 2014.
5. "Draft: Aaron Poreda, lhp, White Sox". BaseballAmerica.com. June 7, 2007. Retrieved May 24, 2014.
6. Flores, Jessica (2022-03-13). "USF baseball coach fired after ex-players' lawsuit alleges 'intolerable sexualized environment'". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
7. "Knights' DiToma Moves On, Roman Named Head Coach". FDU Knights Athletics. Retrieved 2023-05-11.