Scott Laverty enters his 13th season as Head Coach at Chapman University in 2025-26. Laverty reached the pinnacle of Division III baseball when he led the Panthers to the 2019 NCAA Division III National Championship - Chapman's third national title in baseball (1968 and 2003). He was named the D3baseball.com and ABCA Division III Coach of the Year while the Panthers set the school record with 44 wins and the NCAA Division III record with 524 strikeouts.
Laverty also currently serves as the Fourth Vice President of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA). He was elected to the leadership position in September 2024 and will eventually rotate into the President's role in January 2029.
He eclipsed 600 career victories and 300 victories at Chapman during the 2025 season. Since taking the helm of the program for the 2014 season, Laverty has led the Panthers to a winning record in 11 of his 12 seasons. Chapman has hosted four SCIACÂ Tournaments, two NCAA Regionals and one NCAA Super Regional during his tenure. The Panthers have qualified four eight SCIAC Tournaments, four Regionals, two Super Regionals and made one national championship appearance.
The 2022 season was the first full season back, and Laverty took advantage of it leading the Panthers to yet another NCAA Division III Super Regional berth; the format was removed in 2020 and 2021, but returned in 2022. Laverty led the Panthers to a SCIAC regular season championship, and while Chapman was bounced early in the SCIAC tournament, the squad came right back out to Hart Park the following weekend and won the Orange Regional. The season came to a close in the LaGrange Super Regional, losing the best of three series, 2-1.
In 2021, another shortened season starting in March, Laverty led the Panthers to the top of the SCIAC standings in a shortened season and to a third straight SCIAC Tournament title and NCAA appearance. On the way, he eclipsed 500 victories as a Head Coach - winning his 500th game with a 9-3 victory over La Verne. Chapman went 2-2 at the Collegeville Regional and ended the season 15-6.
In 2020, the Panthers remained in the top-5 of the national polls and were off to a solid 12-3 start before the cancellation of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March.Â
The 2019 season marked the first time that the Laverty-led Panthers ended the regular season on top of the SCIAC standings. Chapman hosted and swept through the SCIAC Tournament and was one of the first to host a best-of-five NCAA Regional. After defeating Whitman in five games, Chapman was one of the first to host a Division III Super Regional with the round being added to the Division III tournament in 2019. With a sweep of Concordia (Texas), the Panthers earned their first trip to the Division III World Series during Laverty's tenure.
In July 2013, Laverty became the 14th head baseball coach in Chapman history and immediately continued the tradition of his predecessors, putting together a 30-win campaign and reaching the SCIAC Tournament championship game in his first year. In 2018, Laverty led the Panthers squad to their first-ever SCIAC Tournament title and first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2013.
In 2017, Laverty won his 100th game as a Panther and 400th overall while guiding the Panthers to a second-place finish in the SCIAC and third SCIAC Tournament appearance in four years.Â
Laverty celebrated his 300th head coaching victory in 2014 after amassing 298 wins in 14 previous seasons as the head coach University of Redlands. There he turned around a fledgling program that suffered losing records eight times from 1997-2004 and made it into a perennial contender, leading the Bulldogs to nine straight seasons of .500 or better. Redlands finished in first or second place in the SCIAC five times from 2005-13 including conference titles in '06 and '11 and set the school record with 30 wins each time.
Prior to earning the head coaching job at Redlands, Laverty coached three years as an assistant at UC Riverside (1997-99) alongside legendary Highlanders head coach Jack Smitheran. He also spent the 1997 season on the coaching staff for the Evansville Otters of the Frontier League (Independent). Laverty played his collegiate ball as a shortstop for UC Riverside, helping the Highlanders to the Division II national finals in 1994.
