Georgia Tech’s James Ramsey named ABCA Coach of the Year

Staff Reports

THE FLATS – Head Coach James Ramsey made program history when he was named American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Southeast Regional Coach of the Year earlier this month. Ramsey becomes the first regional coach of the year in program history, the first head coach from the Atlantic Coast Conference to earn the honor in the southeast region and the first coach to ever be named Southeast Coach of the Year in his first season as a head coach.

This is the latest in a string of honors for Coach Ramsey who produced the greatest regular season in program history in his first year the helm. Ramsey became the first coach in ACC history to win ACC Coach of the Year, the ACC regular season title and the ACC tournament title in his first season as a head coach, leading the Yellow Jackets to their first 50 win season in 20 years (50-11) and the No. 2 national seed in the tournament, tied for the highest seed in program history.

Ramsey was the spearhead of a coaching staff that produced the greatest offense in BBCOR era history. The 2026 Jackets scored 662 runs, the most by any team in the modern era of college baseball (since 2011) while posting a .356 batting average, a .467 on-base percentage and a .639 slugging percentage, all new power conference BBCOR era records and the 2^nd most by any school in the BBCOR era. The Jackets led the nation in average, OPS (1.106), OBP, slugging, walks (398), hits (763) and runs this season, setting single season program records in home runs (140), margin of victory (+357), runs scored (662), runs per game (10.9) as well as batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

The Jackets became the first team in ACC history to produce a slugging percentage over .600 for an entire season, setting conference records for batting average, runs per game, home runs, slugging percentage and margin of victory.

His .820 win percentage is the sixth highest in program history, the best since 1971, and the highest of any Georgia Tech team to play more than 40 games in a season. This year’s GT squad was the fastest to 40 wins (48 games) and 50 wins (59 games) in program history while becoming the first ACC program to win both the regular season and tournament titles in 13 years (North Carolina in 2013).

On the mound, GT led the ACC in ERA over the course of 30 conference games while setting a program record with 10.18 strikeouts-per-nine innings, shattering the previous record (10.00) set back in 1998.

Tech set another school record with five All-America selections: Jarren Advincula, Drew Burress, Carson Kerce, Vahn Lackey and Ryan Zuckerman. It was the first time that Tech has ever had four position players earn 1^st Team status (Advincula, Burress, Lackey and Zuckerman) and the first time three Yellow Jackets were named 1^st Team All-America by at least five publications in the same season (Advincula, Burress and Lackey).

Academically, Burress and Kerce were both awarded Academic All-America status, marking just the third time in program history that multiple Jackets earned the recognition. Burress became just the third Tech baseball player to ever earn 1^st Team All-America and 1^st Team Academic All-America in the same year, joining GT legends Mark Teixeira (2000) and Nomar Garciaparra (1994).