Hitting specialist and Division I coaching veteran Matt Burns joined the Longwood softball coaching staff in September, 2020.
The first hire by Lancer softball head coach Dr. Megan Brown, Burns came to Longwood after helping build Bucknell’s offense into one of the most feared in the Patriot League during a three-year stint in Lewisburg, Pa., that encompassed the 2018-20 seasons. He served as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in the first two of those three seasons before taking over as acting head coach during the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
At Bucknell, Burns mentored a Bison lineup that set the program record for home runs and ascended to the top of the Patriot League leaderboards in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage and RBI. Led by All-Patriot League trio Allyse Volpe, Lauren Hadley and Jess Hom, Bucknell finished second in the league in batting average all three years under Burns and amassed a three-year batting average of .273 with an average of 4.4 runs per game, and 67 doubles, 15 triples and 32 home runs each year.
Burns’ work with Bucknell’s hitters translated to sustained Patriot League success as well, with the Bison pulling off back-to-back second-place finishes in 2018 and 2019. Bucknell finished behind only Patriot League powerhouse Boston University both of those years, amassing a 27-23-1 overall record and a 13-5 mark in conference play in 2018, and a 28-24 overall and 14-3 conference record in 2019.
Burns also helped Bucknell’s hitters produce some of the best individual offensive seasons in school history, with slugger Taylor Wolfgang hitting the second-most doubles (18) in a single season in 2019, Hadley raking second-most home runs (9) and fourth-most hits (61) in 2018, and both of those players finishing in the top five in single-season RBI, with Wolfgang at third with 41 in 2019 and Hadley in fifth with 37 in 2018.
As a softball and baseball coach and recruiting coordinator, Burns’ work at Bucknell was his most recent success in a career that has seen him make his mark at the plate with five programs spanning the Division I and III levels. Prior to his most recent stop at Bucknell, he served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Division III Skidmore during the 2016 and 2017 seasons and helped the Thoroughbreds reach the Liberty League playoffs both years. During that two-year stint, he mentored Skidmore’s first-ever All-American in Dani DiGregory, put four players on the NFCA All-Region team and five on the All-Liberty League first team.
His two-year stay at Skidmore marked his transition to the softball coaching ranks after spending the first three years of his coaching career on the baseball field. After a four-year playing career at Plattsburgh State from 2006-10 in which he helped the program record its first national ranking in program history as a senior, Burns began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant coach for the Watertown Wizards in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League during the summer of 2012 and then as an assistant coach at Bard College in Red Hook, N.Y., 2013.
From there, he ventured to SUNY New Platz for the 2014 season and jumped to the Division I level as a volunteer assistant coach at Akron in 2015. At Akron, he helped the Zips to 28 wins, which tied for the program’s most overall wins for the prior 18 seasons. Burns also helped mentor All-Mid-American first-team selection Joey Havrilak and All-Defensive Team selection Mason Mamarella, with Havrilak going on to get drafted in the 18th round of the 2015 Major League Baseball Draft by the Detroit Tigers. A program-record six Akron players also earned Academic All-MAC honors that year.
Burns holds both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science for Teachers degrees and is a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
