University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Baseball
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- sfriedho@unca.edu
- Phone:
- 251-6920
Scott Friedholm coached his 11th and final season as the Head Baseball Coach at UNC Asheville in 2025. He was appointed head coach on June 17, 2014.Â
The Bulldogs won 15 games in 2025, collecting one major Big South Conference award and totaling three All-Conference selections. Clay Edmondson was the first Bulldog since 2008 to be named Big South Conference Pitcher of the Year, while also being named a First Team All-Conference selection. Rylen Stockton was named to the All-Conference Second Team and the All-Freshman Team as well as the Buster Posey Award Midseason Watch List. Owen Michelson was also named to the All-Academic Team. Edmondson earned two Big South Conference Starting Pitcher of the Week honors along the way, while Stockton and Garrett Crum each earned one Big South Conference Freshman of the Week honor.Â
Asheville posted 22 wins including 10 in the Big South Conference in 2024. Asheville posted Big South Conference Preseason Player of the Year Robbie Burnett, and ended up with four All-Conference selections highlighted by Burnett on the First Team. Ty Kaufman landed on the Second Team, while Colby Guy was Honorable Mention and Cole Schiff was named to the All-Academic Team. In the classroom, the Bulldogs posted five College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections along with earning the American Baseball Coaches Association Team Academic Excellence Award for the second consecutive year.Â
The Bulldogs went 26-26 overall and 12-15 in conference action in 2023. Asheville had one of the best season starts in program history as the Bulldogs won every weekend non-conference series, compiling an 11-1 weekend record entering Big South Conference play. Asheville finished the season tied in sixth. Robbie Burnett earned All-Big South First Team honors for his efforts. Asheville had four series sweeps during the season, three against non-conference opponents and one against conference for Radford. Asheville also posted five College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections and earned the American Baseball Coaches Association Team Academic Excellence Award for the first time in program history.Â
After facing a tough non-conference schedule, the Bulldogs pulled together in 2022 and finished with a 21-29-1 record overall and a 14-9-1 mark in Big South play. The 14 conference wins match the program record for league wins in a season, while the .604 winning percentage in conference games set a new program benchmark. The Bulldogs finished third in the Big South standings matching the best finish ever by the program and its best since 1998. Dominic Freeberger (First Team), Jacob Edwards (First Team), Justin Honeycutt (First Team), Robbie Burnett (Freshman, Honorable Mention), and Blake Little (All-Academic) all earned All-Big South honors. Throughout the 2022 campaign, six different Bulldogs earned weekly awards from the Big South. Closing out the season at the Big South Baseball Tournament, the Bulldogs tallied their first postseason win since 2017 when it knocked off High Point. After the season, Jacob Edwards signed a professional contract with the Minnesota Twins, joining a group of four former Bulldogs that are currently playing at the professional level.Â
The 2021 season saw Friedholm lead the Bulldogs to a 15-33 record overall and a 14-26 record vs. Big South foes. Friedholm picked up his 100th career victory leading the Bulldogs on March 21. He is the first Bulldog Head Coach to ever reach this milestone. Among other highlights in 2021 included five straight series wins over Big South foes and a six-straight series win streak at Greenwood Field. Furthermore, Justin Honeycutt (Relief Pitcher), Dominic Freeberger (Player, Relief Pitcher), and Jacob Edwards (Starting Pitcher - twice) all garnered weekly honors from the Big South under Friedholm's tutelage. Following the season, Brandon Lankford (ABCA All-Region Second Team, All-Big South First Team), Dominic Freeberger (All-Big South First Team), and Ethan Tressler (Big South All-Academic Team) all earned honors from the conference for their work on the field and in the classroom.Â
The 2020 season was shortened to just 16 games for the Bulldogs. UNC Asheville, which went 5-11, had its share of highlights during the abbreviated season with Easton Jones being named Big South Player of the Week (Feb. 24) and Blake Brown being selected as the conference's Starting Pitcher of the Week (March 9). Following the season, Brown signed a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. He became the first Bulldog to sign with a MLB franchise since 2012 when Ryan Dull was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 32nd round of the MLB Draft. Â
In 2019, Friedholm’s fifth year at the helm, the Bulldogs picked up series wins over Iona, USC Upstate and Longwood. The Bulldogs swept a three game conference series for the first time since the 2012 season with their sweep of Longwood at Greenwood Field on March 29-31. The Bulldogs returned to the Big South Championships in the 2019 season for the second time in the last three seasons.
The 2019 season was a historic one as three Bulldogs worked their way into a top spot in the UNC Asheville record books under Friedholm’s watch. Eric Whitecavage became the Bulldogs all-time leader in pitching appearances with 102 while Kole Harris became the Bulldogs program leader in saves with 16. Austin Fahr became the first Bulldog to allow 11 runs or less in a single season when pitching at least 30 innings.
The Bulldogs received multiple honors throughout the 2019 season, including a Big South Player of the Week (Greg Gasparro, March 4), a Big South Freshman of the Week (Jacob Edwards, March 4), an All-Conference first team selection (Brandon Lankford), an All-Conference second team selection (Danny Wilson), an All-Conference Honorable Mention (Austin Fahr), an All-Academic selection (Jordan Carr) and three NCCSIA All-State second team selections (Brandon Lankford, Greg Gasparro and Austin Fahr). Â
During the 2018 season, the Bulldogs earned multiple honors throughout the season, including a Big South Player of the Week (Danny Wilson, April 30), two Starting Pitcher of the Weeks (Jordan Carr, Feb. 19 and Greg Gasparro, April 30), an All-Academic Team member (Jesse Juday) and a Freshman of the Week (Cody Wilson, April 9).Â
The 2017 Bulldogs were probably a year ahead of where Friedholm and others expected them to be as evidenced by UNC Asheville being picked to finish 10th in the conference prior to the season by the league’s coaches. With a young roster that featured 16 underclassmen, including nine freshmen, the Bulldogs mounted a successful campaign that saw them claim 25 victories, including six series wins, en route to finishing tied for fifth in the regular-season league standings with an 11-13 record. UNC Asheville capped the year by advancing to the Big South Conference Baseball Championship for the first time since 2012.
The 25 wins is tied for sixth-most in program history and marked the second time in the Scott Friedholm era that a team had collected at least 20 wins, becoming just the fourth Bulldog head coach to win 20 or more games in multiple seasons. More importantly, the Bulldogs were not swept during the season and were the only Big South Conference team to defeat every other program in the league during the campaign.
During the season, the Bulldogs took series wins over Iona, UMBC and Longwood at home and also claimed road series over Presbyterian and Campbell and won two-of-three in Spartanburg in the second weekend of the season. The Bulldogs also posted a winning record at home (12-11) for the first time since 2012, when UNC Asheville also finished 12-11.
The 2017 Bulldogs went 11-13 in Big South Conference action, finishing tied for fifth in the league standings to earn the No. 6 seed in the league tournament. The 11 wins in conference action were the most since the Bulldogs won 12 league games in 2012.
Earning a berth into the postseason was not enough for the Bulldogs as the team won a game in the postseason tournament for the first time since 2008 and then took it another step further by winning multiple games (2) while advancing to the semifinal round for the first time since the 2007 season.
Following the season, Joe Tietjen was named an honorable mention All-Big South player and earned his second Big South Conference All-Academic Team honor. Freshman Brandon Lankford was named a Freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball News, a first for the program since 2004, and earned Big South Championship All-Tournament honors for his efforts during the tourney. During the season, freshman Chris Troost was named the Big South’s first-ever Freshman of the Week and Lankford earned the honor the following week.
Statistically, the Bulldogs saw a 10-year low in errors in the field and posted a 10-year high in fielding percentage as a team while the Bulldog outfielders finished second in the nation for outfield assists with 18. The Bulldogs also caught 33 runners attempting to steal, a 10-year high. UNC Asheville’s pitching corps continued to make strides as they combined for a 6.05 team ERA, the lowest under Friedholm’s watch, and struck out 365 batters, the most in the last 10 campaigns. On offense, the Bulldogs posted the most stolen bases (56) since the 2010 team swiped 58 and had the most extra-base knocks (134) since the 2008 team recorded 178.
The 2016 campaign saw the Bulldogs finish the season with a 16-38 record, including a 3-2 road win over 11th-ranked UNC. The win over the nationally-ranked Tar Heels marked the first time any UNC Asheville program had bested a team from UNC. Asheville also claimed series over Mount St. Mary’s, Presbyterian College and Charleston Southern.
Following the season, outfielder Joe Tietjen was named to the All-Big South Second Team as well as the Big South Conference All-Academic Team.
In his first season with the Bulldogs, Friedholm led the 2015 Asheville team to a 21-34 overall record in a season that saw several individual superlatives as well as the offense improving its production by more than 100 runs in just a year, ending the season in the Top 80 among NCAA Division I teams in runs scored. Senior Tommy Houmard was named an All-Big South Conference first-team selection, while fellow senior Hunter Bryant was a second-team selection. The pair, along with senior Nick Schavone, were each named second-team All-State performers by the North Carolina Collegiate Sports Information Association (NCCSIA) as well.
Houmard finished the season as one of the top 25 shortstops in the country and was on the Brooks Wallace Award Watch List for the entire season after being one of over 100 players on the initial preseason listing.
Friedholm came to Asheville from Boston College, where he spent four seasons as the recruiting coordinator and pitching coach. While in Chesnutt Hill, he worked to make the 2014 campaign the best season for the BC pitching staff, registering an ERA of 4.27, a four-season low. The Eagles also tallied 352 strikeouts and a .261 opponent batting average over 489 innings.
Prior to his time in at BC, Friedholm spent five years at the United States Naval Academy in the same roles. He guided the Midshipmen’s pitching staff to the highest five-year win (149), strikeout (1,757) and save (59) totals among any other five-year stretch. He developed the first two pitchers to ever be drafted out of Navy while also mentoring 12 All-Conference selections, three Freshman All-Americans and one All-American. The Midshipmen won 30 games in four of the five years he was at Navy. The program had done that just three times in the previous 110 years.
The two pitchers drafted from Navy, Mitch Harris (13th round – St. Louis Cardinals) and Oliver Drake (43rd round – Baltimore Orioles), both made their Major League debuts in 2015.
Before heading to Annapolis, Friedholm spent four seasons as both the recruiting coordinator and pitching coach at the University of Maine, producing three MLB draft picks from his staff and also helping guide the Black Bears to two NCAA Tournament appearances. His staff at Maine ranked amongst the top 25 in the country in ERA two of his four seasons.
Friedholm got his collegiate coaching start as the pitching coach at Bryant University, where the Bulldogs set school records in both overall and Northeast-10 Conference wins in consecutive years in both of his years with the program.
Friedholm played four seasons at Providence College from 1995-1998. As a freshman, he was part of the Friars squad that won 44 games and a program-record 16 Big East games en route to earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament. He earned All-Big East and All-Region honors in 1996 as a sophomore. As a senior, he hit .395 with 13 home runs and a school-record 66 RBIs, earning All-American honors. He signed a free agent contract with the Tampa Bay organization in June 1998.
Friedholm graduated from Providence in 1998 with a B.A. in History. He and his wife, Angie, have two sons, Cooper and Camden.
| Scott Friedholm's Career | |||
| 2014-2025 | UNC Asheville | Head Coach (195-340-1) | |
| 2010-14 | Boston College | Recruiting Coordinator/Pitching Coach | 10 Players Drafted |
| 2005-10 | The Naval Academy | Recruiting Coordinator/Pitching Coach | 3 Players Drafted |
| 2001-05 | Univ. of Maine | Recruiting Coordinator/Pitching Coach | 4 Players Drafted |
| 1999-2001 | Bryant University | Assistant Coach/Pitching Coach | 1 Player Drafted |
| 1998-99 | Tampa Bay Rays Org. | Player | |
| 1995-98 | Providence College | Player |
