POUGHKEEPSIE, New York – First-year Marist head baseball coach Lance Ratchford has locked in his staff for the 2023 season.
 
Mike Coss is returning to the staff and will serve as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. Anthony Spataro enters his first year at Marist, and will be the hitting coach. Spataro will also coach the infielders and baserunning, serve as camp coordinator, and assist Coss in recruiting.
 
"I'm excited about the dynamic of our staff," Ratchford said. "We're a young but experienced staff within the MAAC. My number one goal when I first got here was to surround our players with a championship atmosphere. Mike and I were part of the 2017 MAAC championship team here at Marist, and we're adding Anthony, who is coming off a 2022 Patriot League championship with Army West Point."
 
Coss is entering his eighth year of association with the Marist baseball program. He is in his fourth season as an assistant coach after having pitched for the Red Foxes from 2015-18. Coss ranks fourth in program history in career appearances (78) and fifth in saves (11), and played a key role on the Red Foxes' MAAC championship team in 2017. He began his coaching career under Ratchford at Cobleskill in 2019, where the team won 13 more games than the previous year and improved its staff ERA by nearly three runs.
 
"I'm really excited to reunite with Mike, and I have all the confidence in the world that he will lead our pitching staff back to the top of MAAC," Ratchford said.
 
Spataro joins the Red Foxes after spending the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Army West Point, where he helped lead the Black Knights to NCAA Regional play this past season. Prior to his time at Army, he coached at Siena and his alma mater, Brockport. At Siena, he helped the Saints set the program record for fielding percentage (.966 in 2018) and lead the MAAC in stolen bases (52 in 2021). He also coached the Amsterdam Mohawks of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League for two seasons, and led the team to a 76-29 record and a 2016 championship.
 
"We're really happy about the addition of Anthony Spataro to our staff," Ratchford said. When you're able to add another young coach that's coming off a conference championship, and has experience within the league, that's always a great situation."
 
The Marist baseball team finished 29-17 in the 2022 season, and in May had the NCAA's longest active winning streak. The Red Foxes have won seven conference championships in the history and have had 20 student-athletes selected in Major League Baseball's First-Year Player Draft.