Baseball
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- baseball@liberty.edu
The 2014 Big South Coach of the Year, Jim Toman has overseen the rise of the Liberty Flames baseball program to national prominence during his tenure.
Toman enters his ninth year at Liberty, having posted the highest NCAA Division I winning percentage (.625) and compiled the best Big South Conference winning percentage (.668) during his first eight years in Lynchburg of any head baseball coach in program history.
Toman will begin the 2016 baseball season three wins shy of 300 career victories at Liberty. Toman would become the second coach in Liberty program history to reach 300 wins.
In 2014, he became the first coach in school history to lead the Flames to back-to-back NCAA berths. After claiming an automatic bid by winning the 2013 Big South Championship, Toman’s 2014 team received the program’s first at-large selection to an NCAA Regional.
During his tenure, Liberty has posted the school’s three top single-season win totals in program history. The 2010 Flames set the school record with 43 wins, while Liberty posted 41-win seasons in 2012 and 2014. In addition, three of the four teams with 40-plus victory seasons all-time have been under Toman’s leadership.
The Flames have won 35 or more games in six of his eight seasons at Liberty and have averaged 37 wins per season, the most of any head coach in program history. The Flames have notched a 297-178-1 overall record during his eight seasons on Liberty Mountain and have also posted a 135-67Big South mark over the span.
During his coaching career, Toman has been a part of 16 NCAA Regional teams, seven NCAA Super Regional teams and three College World Series teams.
This past season, Toman's squad posted a 33-23 overall mark and finished third in the Big South Conferene with a 16-8 record. During the year, Liberty ranked as high as 24th nationally by Baseball America (Feb. 24).
For the second consecutive year, a Liberty pitcher was named the Big South Pitcher of the Year as Jared Lyons was selected the conference's top pitcher. In addition, first baseman/pitcher Alex Close became the first Liberty player to be named twice to the Capital One CoSIDA Academic All-America first team.
After capturing the Big South regular season title with a 23-3 record in 2014, Toman’s Liberty squad garnered the program’s first ever at-large selection to a NCAA Regional. In addition, the Flames, who finished the year at 41-18, were ranked among one of the four major baseball polls during the regular season for the first time in program history, reaching as high as No. 21 in the Baseball America weekly poll on March 21.
Liberty’s 23 Big South victories were also the most in school history. The Flames won 20 consecutive conference games during the season.
At year’s end, Liberty became the first team in Big South history to sweep the major conference awards. Toman was an unanimous selection as the conference’s Coach of the Year, while second baseman Ryan Seiz was named the Big South Player of the Year. Trey Lambert was selected the Big South Pitcher of the Year, becoming the first Liberty pitcher ever to garner the award and also was named the Big South Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Pitcher Parker Bean was voted the conference’s Freshman of the Year.
Nationally, Seiz became the first player in Liberty history to be named to three postseason All-American teams. Meanwhile, Bean was named a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American and VaSID All-State Rookie of the Year.
In addition, first baseman Alex Close and Lambert became the first two players to be named to the Capital One CoSIDA Academic All-America team.
One of the key elements of the Flames’ success in 2014 was its mound corps. Liberty led the Big South Conference with a 2.62 ERA and finished the year ranked 14th nationally in the category. The Flames’ ERA set the mark for the lowest in program history for a season. Liberty also topped the Big South with nine shutouts.
The relief corps also enjoyed a strong season in 2014, recording 16 saves, tying for the second most in program history with Toman’s 2010 team.
In 2013,Toman guided the Flames to their first NCAA Regional final appearance in program history and their first Big South Championship since 2000. Toman’s Flames won five straight games to capture the 2013 Big South Championship and gain a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Columbia, S.C. Regional, the highest seed for a Liberty team in school history, The Flames then defeated Clemson twice to make their first appearance in a regional final in the 40-year history of the program.
Liberty became only the second fifth seed in Big South history to win the conference title. The Flames posted a 36-29 overall record and a 13-11 mark in Big South play, finishing in third place in the conference’s North Division and fifth overall.
Liberty posted a fielding percentage of .972 while playing the most games in a season in program history. Led by Johnny Bench Watch list member Trey Wimmer, Flames’ opponents had only 51 percent stolen base success rate in 2013 and swiped 27 bases, the fewest stolen bases allowed by Liberty in the past nine years.
In 2012, the Flames posted their second 40-plus win season in a three-year span under Toman and set school records for team ERA, shutouts and fielding percentage. Liberty pitchers recorded a 3.04 team ERA, ranking 15th nationally. In addition, the Flames set a Big South and school record with 11 shutouts.
Defensively, Liberty finished the year with a school record .975 fielding percentage and gave up 217 runs, the fewest by a Flames team since allowing 209 in 1991. Liberty finished the season tied for 12th in the country in runs allowed per game (3.4 runs/games).
Toman saw first baseman Alex Close named a Freshman All-American by both Collegiate Baseball and the NCBWA.
The year before, Toman saw seven players from his Flames squad selected during the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft, the most players chosen in a single draft in the 40-year history of the program. The number tied the 2007 and 2010 Coastal Carolina squads for the Big South Conference record for players picked in a single draft.
Liberty had its best season under Toman in 2010, posting a school record for wins in a single season with a 43-18 record. At the time, it was only the second 40-win campaign in the history of the program. The team's ledger was boosted by a 21-8 road mark, the nation's 10th best road record in 2010.
On May 2 of that year, Toman recorded his 100th career victory, as the Flames defeated Gardner-Webb, 10-7, at Worthington Stadium. Toman became the fastest Liberty baseball head coach to amass the milestone, doing so in 160 games.
The Flames had their best year at the plate during Toman's tenure in 2010. Liberty hit .318 and scored 691 runs, the second-best total in each category over the previous 16 years. Third baseman Tyler Bream set a school record with 96 hits in a single campaign, while second baseman P.J. Jimenez and outfielder Curran Redal also recorded 90 hits during the year.
The Liberty relief corps also enjoyed a strong season, recording 16 saves, the second most in program history. Only the 2000 Flames team had more, posting 18 saves.
In 2009, the Liberty pitching staff set a new season strikeout record, fanning 508 opposing batters. The Flames' strikeout total led the Big South Conference and their 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings ranked 22nd nationally at season's end.
Also, Liberty set a new fielding standard, committing the fewest errors, 53, in team history. The 2009 team's fielding percentage ranked 16th in the country. From that infield, third baseman Tyler Bream was named a Freshman All-American by the Collegiate Baseball News.
After 11 seasons as the senior member of Ray Tanner's coaching staff at South Carolina, Toman was named the sixth head coach in the history of the Liberty Baseball program in June 2007. Toman worked a total of 18 years alongside Tanner, dating back to the 1990 season at N.C. State.
During his time at South Carolina, Toman served as recruiting coordinator and coached the team’s catchers. Known as one of the top recruiters in college baseball, the 27-year college coaching veteran was named the 2002 Baseball America/American Baseball Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year. Before joining the Gamecock staff in 1996, Toman served under Tanner for seven years at N.C. State.
Toman has recruited 15 top 25 classes, including all 11 of his seasons at South Carolina. During his final years with the Gamecocks, he recruited many of the players who were members of the 2010 and 2011 South Carolina National Championship teams. Toman's 2003, 2005 and 2006 Gamecock recruiting classes were ranked first in the nation by the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
During his time on the staff in Columbia, S.C., Toman and the Gamecocks made nine NCAA Regional trips, including eight straight appearances between 2000 and 2007, and three consecutive visits to the College World Series (2002-04). N.C. State made seven NCAA appearances during his time there.
In addition, South Carolina posted eight straight seasons of 40 or more wins with Toman on the Gamecock coaching staff. During his 11 seasons at South Carolina, he helped the Gamecocks to a combined 500-220 record (.694).
A catcher, Toman was a four-year letterwinner at N.C. State from 1981-84, and served as team captain of the Wolfpack his junior and senior seasons. The highlight of his career as a player came in the 1984 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, when he set tournament records for home runs (4), doubles (4) and total bases (25) and was named to the all-tournament team.
Toman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in vocational industrial education from N.C. State in 1985 and graduated as the top student in the vocational industrial education curriculum. He received a Master of Science degree in sport management from N.C. State in 1995 with a 4.0 grade-point average.
Upon graduation, Toman entered the coaching profession as an assistant at Richmond County High School in Rockingham, N.C. While working with one of the top high school baseball programs in North Carolina for two years, he also served as head wrestling coach and as an assistant football coach. He then moved to Atlantic Community High School in Del Ray Beach, Fla., where he spent a year as an assistant for baseball.
Toman moved into the collegiate coaching ranks in 1989 as an assistant at Florida International for one year. At Florida International, he was responsible for the weight program, worked with the squad's catchers and coached first base. Toman joined the N.C. State staff before the 1990 season.
Toman also spent three summers as an assistant coach with the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod League.
A native of Monroeville, Pa., Toman lives in Forest, Va. He has three children - Caroline (18), Charlie Mac (15), and Tucker (12). He is a member of the Thomas Road Baptist Church.
