UMR - Baseball Miners

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TODD DeGRAFFENREID enters his fifth season as the head coach of the Miners after leading the team to its best record during his tenure of the program.

UMR finished the 2007 season with a record of 20-27 and had a significant say in the Great Lakes Valley Conference playoff race down the stretch. The Miners knocked off three teams -- Quincy, Rockhurst and Northern Kentucky -- who were still in contention for playoff berths and nobody among that trio qualified for the event. In addition, UMR won the season series over eventual tournament champion Drury.

The Miners had a record of 11-41 record during their first season in the GLVC, but despite the record, proved that they could play with the top teams in the conference. UMR swept a doubleheader from a Quincy team that made it to the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, played GLVC champion Northern Kentucky to three one-run games and won two of three contests from an Indianapolis team that also made the conference tournament field.

UMR also had the league's top freshman as voted by league coaches in Thomas McCormick, an outfielder who led the Miners in hitting during the 2006 campaign.

UMR finished 11-43 in 2004 after going 16-33 in DeGraffenreid's first year at the helm. The Miners also finished with an 11-20 conference record in 2004, but UMR was one of only two teams in the nation to post two victories over a Central Missouri State team that placed third in the NCAA Division II World Series. The other team to pull the feat was eventual national champion Delta State.

UMR also posted a win over Emporia State during that season; the Hornets later participated in the NCAA Central Regional tournament.

DeGraffenreid became the UMR head coach after serving as an assistant coach at William Woods University for three seasons while also playing professional baseball. He started his minor league careeer in the 1999 season when he played on a championship team in London (Ont.) in the Frontier League. During that season, DeGraffenreid led all rookie third basemen in hitting, hits, home runs and stolen bases.

He later played for Richmond and for the Gateway Grizzlies in that league before playing in 2002 for San Angelo and Fort Worth.

DeGraffenreid attended Lincoln University, where he was a standout third baseman at a time when the Blue Tigers were emerging as a top team in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. He later served as an assistant coach at LU during which Lincoln posted a second place finish in the MIAA Tournament in 1999.

DeGraffenreid, who completed work on a bachelor's degree in kinesiology in 2000, is originally from Searcy, Ark.

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