NEWS

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Nic Lops, manager of the Sanford Mainers has been selected as the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) Joel Cooney Manager of the Year, while Brian Wroth of the United Collegiate Umpires Association was voted Umpire of the Year for the 2024 season.

 

Lops’ Mainers clinched the top wild card spot with a 26–18 regular season record, helping the Mainers finish the season on an 11–1 stretch, including an 11–game winning streak going into the season finale.

 

The Mainers went into the 2024 postseason as the No. 4 overall seed, earning home field advantage for the first round against the Keene SwampBats. After finishing 7–1 against their north division rival, the Mainers swept the SwampBats in the first round, matching up with the #1 Vermont Mountaineers in the semifinals round, a team that won 31 games during the regular season. After rain suspended game one, the Mainers took care of business at home and swept both games to advance to the Fay Vincent Sr. Cup Championship with a perfect 4–0 record. The Mainers met the #2 Newport Gulls in the championship, winning game one at Cardines Field 7–1, however, dropping the next two games and falling a few outs short of the Fay Vincent Sr. Cup.

 

The 2024 season marked Lops’ fourth season at the helm for the Mainers and fifth overall with the club. Lops was also named the 2022 Manager of the Year after leading the Mainers to the semifinals that season as the #6 seed. Outside of his Mainers’ tenure, Lops has helped Southern Maine win three of their seven consecutive conference titles, as he also earned the Yankee Small Conference Coach of the Year all three seasons.

 

A member of the United Collegiate Umpires Association, Wroth was a part of the umpiring crew for the 2024 NECBL All-Star Game at Muzzy Field in Bristol, Connecticut. Wroth’s son played in the NECBL for the Valley Blue Sox and won the Fay Vincent Sr. Cup with the team back in 2018.

 

2024 was Wroth’s 41st year umpiring baseball, 34th at the collegiate level and 28th with the NECBL. Wroth began playing baseball at the young age of seven and has been in the game since. Wroth was appreciative of all of the opportunities he received this year as part of the NECBL and more.

 

“This was a special year for me working my first Division 3 Regional, working in the NECBL All-Star Game and to receive this award which could be given to several other umpires.”

 

When asked about the honor, Wroth brought up one of his favorite baseball movies and how it connects him with the game.

 

“Kevin Costner was in a baseball movie called ‘For The Love of The Game,” Wroth said. “That’s how I’d sum up my life when it comes to baseball.” 

 

About the Joel Cooney Award

 

The NECBL Manager of the Year award is named after Joel Cooney, an aerospace engineer by trade who was instrumental in the founding of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

 

Joel and a group of visionaries, including founder Joseph Consentino, met at ESPN in 1993 with the notion that college ball players needed a place to polish their skills in a competitive environment with qualified coaches during the summer. Joel was elected NECBL president in 1995 and was instrumental in the circuit gaining NCAA sanctioning that led to funding from Major League Baseball. He was bumped to the commissioner’s chair in 1997 to make way for former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent to become president.

The New England Collegiate Baseball League is a wooden bat college summer league that fields teams in all six New England states. Partially funded by Major League Baseball, the New England League started play in 1994 and has sent over 230 alumni to the Major Leagues with nearly 30 alumni taken in the first round of the MLB Draft. For continuing coverage of the NECBL, visit NECBL.com and follow the league on X/Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.