CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia baseball head coach Chris Pollard announced Friday (June 13) the additions of assistant coaches Brady Kirkpatrick, Derek Simmons and Eric Tyler, along with John Natoli and Brian Sakowski as additional staff members.
The quintet led Duke to a 41-21 record in 2025 and propelled the Blue Devils to their first home Super Regional in program history.
Kirkpatrick and Tyler joined Pollard in Durham before the 2023 season, while Simmons arrived at Duke before the 2025 campaign.
Sakowski and Natoli both made their debuts on the Blue Devil staff during the 2024 season.
Brady Kirkpatrick – Pitching Coach
In Kirkpatrick’s final season at Duke, the Blue Devil arms ranked second in the ACC in WHIP (1.37), third in strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.58) and sixth in strikeouts per nine innings (9.6) along the way to securing a 40-win season.
Under his guidance in 2024, the Duke pitching staff helped capture the program’s second ACC tournament title and held opponents to 4.86 runs per game and a batting average of .220.
In his first season at the helm of the pitching staff, Kirkpatrick helped Duke to a 39-24 record and the program’s third Super Regional appearance, utilizing an opener strategy on the mound. The Blue Devil hurlers set a program record with 675 strikeouts in 2023.
Over his first two seasons at Duke, Kirkpatrick tutored seven MLB Draft picks, three All-Americans and two freshman All-Americans.
Before he arrived in Durham, Kirkpatrick was as an assistant at Florida Atlantic (2022), Harvard (2019-21), Monmouth (2017-18) and Rochester University (2016).
No stranger to the ACC, Kirkpatrick pitched three years at Maryland and his final college season at San Diego. In 2014, he was part of the Terrapins’ first Super Regional team. Kirkpatrick began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at USD and he earned his master’s degree in global business leadership in 2015.
The Eugene, Oregon, native was a two-time Scholar-Athlete Award winner, earning his undergraduate degree in criminology and criminal justice from Maryland in 2014.
Derek Simmons – Recruiting Coordinator/Infielders
In his lone season with the Blue Devils, Simmons coordinated all developmental aspects for the infielders and spearheaded Duke’s recruiting efforts as the recruiting coordinator.
Simmons arrived in Durham after spending five seasons at Indiana working with hitters, infielders and as the program’s recruiting coordinator. Known for…