BATON ROUGE — Baton Rouge Community College continues its coaching staff expansions with a new head baseball coach.

BRCC has hired Hendrix College pitching coach and recruiting coordinator Brandon Schmidt to lead the school's baseball program. Schmidt will be the fourth coach in program history.

During his seven years at Hendrix in Conway, Arkansas, Schmidt coached seven All-Conference pitchers who averaged 6.83 strikeouts per game and allowed the fewest hits, runs and walks in the program’s history. The Arkansas native also stewarded five Division I signees as the head coach for the Texarkana Twins during the summer stint in a Texas Collegiate League.

"Coach Schmidt’s drive and passion for baseball and his player development skills are what stood out to me," BRCC Athletics Director Brock Kantrow said. "But more importantly, it’s his vision for the baseball program and his style of coaching that connects with the young men he recruits."

Schmidt said he is confident that he can reenergize a Bears program that has been down for several years, planning to build the program by developing talent and using different recruiting strategies.

"Pitching and defense is something that I like to focus on with the recruiting side of things," Schmidt said. "Pitching is my forte. I was a pitcher in both Division I and junior college."

BRCC Athletics is a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 23 and the Louisiana Community College Athletic Conference.

"Especially for the young men that are incoming freshmen, they’re going to get a good understanding of what a base four-year university strength and conditioning schedule template looks like before they ever step foot on a four-year campus," Schmidt said.