Mike Bencic, president of Slippery Rock Sports Group, LLC, made the announcement during a press conference at Jack Critchfield Park on the campus of Slippery Rock University, where the Sliders will play their home games.

Bencic also announced the hiring of Chad Fitzgerald, pitching coach at Heidelberg College in Ohio, as the Sliders pitching coach.

Rowe took over the La Roche program in the fall of 2006 at the age of 23 and guided the Redhawks to their first-ever regular season Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference championship in his first season at the helm. The team subsequently lost in the AMCC championship game for the second consecutive year.

Rowe has guided the Redhawks to a total of 47 wins in his two seasons as head coach.

He began his coaching career as the assistant coach under Rich Pasquale at LaRoche in 2006 and helped lead the Redhawk's to a school-record 28 wins and a first-ever appearance in the AMCC championship game.

Rowe succeeded Pasquale as La Roche's head coach when the latter accepted the job of assistant coach at SRU. Pasquale is now in his second season as head coach at Youngstown State.

Prior to becoming a coach, Rowe played one season at Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, where he was coached by Darren Mazeroski, son of Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski, and three seasons at Slippery Rock University under head coach Jeff Messer.

Rowe was a member of the 2003 Rock team that won the NCAA Division II North Atlantic Regional title and competed in the D-II World Series. That team holds the school record for wins with 43. Rowe was a two-time first-team All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division selection and finished second in the PSAC in batting average in his senior season with a .412 mark. He formerly held the school record for doubles in a season with 21 as a junior in 2005.

In addition to his duties at LaRoche, Rowe has served as head coach of the Pittsburgh Diamond Dawgs in the Western Pennsylvania Elite Baseball League. The league is comprised of higher-talented high school athletes in the Pittsburgh area. Rowe also has experience as a camp instructor at Slippery Rock University, Mansfield University and The University of Pittsburgh.

Rowe graduated from Knoch High School in 2001 and received his bachelor's degree in sport coaching from the United States Sports Academy in 2008. He is the son of Tracy and Debbie Rowe of Saxonburg.

Fitzgerald enters his second season as pitching coach at Heidelberg, an NCAA Division III school located in Tiffi, Ohio.

In his first season of collegiate coaching, Fitzgerald helped lead the Student Prince pitching staff to four team records, including lowest earned run average (3.50) and opponent's batting average (.246). Along the way, Fitzgerald had five pitchers earn All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors and two (Everett Thomas and Andy Lowe) receive all-region accolades.

Fitzgerald was a pitcher and two-time Academic All-American at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa. Seton Hill racked up 124 victories over the course of his four-year career, including a 45-20 season in 2006. In 2006, Seton Hill also claimed the American Mideast Conference Championship and went on to win the NAIA Region IX and the East Coast Super Regional's, earning a bid to the NAIA World Series. Fitzgerald posted a 4-1 record on the mound in 10 appearances, with a 3.69 earned run average during the Griffins' championship season in 2006.

Fitzgerald is a native of Hermitage, Pa.; a 2003 graduate of Hickory High School and a 2007 graduate of Seton Hill with a degree in marketing and human resource management.

 SLIDERS NEWS AND NOTES:

The 2009 Prospect League schedule will be released in the next week to 10 days, league officials said. Each team will play a 54-game schedule that will include 27 home games. A midseason all-star game will also be played, in which the Western Division all-stars will take on the Eastern Division all-stars. The champion of each division will meet in an end-of-the-season championship series.

The Sliders will be members of the Eastern Division, which will also include teams located in Butler, Pa.; Chillicothe, Ohio; Lorain, Ohio; and Richmond, Indiana.

The Western Division will consist of former members of the Central Illinois Collegiate League, which has merged with the Prospect League charter members. The existing CICL teams are located in Danville, Illinois; Hannibal, Missouri; Huntingburg, Indiana; DuPage, Illinois; Quincy, Illinois. and Springfield, Illinois.

Each Prospect League team roster will consist of 24 players and three coaches. No timetable has been set for the naming of the Sliders' third coach.

Single-game tickets for Sliders home games are $5 for senior citizens and presale general admission, $6 general admission at the gate and $7 reserved seats. Lawn seats behind the outfield fences will be available for $5. Season tickets are $50 for lawn seating, $96 for senior citizens, $128 for adult general admission and $160 for reserved seats. A $40 season parking pass is also available.

For ticket information, please call the Sliders office at 888.458.8831 or write to the team at 102 North Gait Drive, Slippery Rock, PA 16057.