The Citadel Athletics

The Citadel announced Russell Triplett as the Bulldogs' baseball head coach on Wednesday, June 19, 2024.

Triplett begins his second season as head coach for the Diamond Dogs. In his first season with The Citadel, the Bulldogs finished with a 31-26 overall record and a 12-9 mark in conference play, the first time since 2010 they achieved 30 wins in a season.

Despite being ranked ninth in the SoCon preseason poll, Triplett and the Bulldogs secured the No. 3 seed in the 2025 Southern Conference Tournament, their highest ranking since 2009 when they finished 20-10.

The Bulldogs lost to the No. 7 seed Wofford Terriers, then defeated No. 5 Western Carolina 11-10, and lost their final game against the No. 4 Mercer Bears.

The Citadel achieved multiple milestones both as a team and individually, including recording 105 steals in a season, the most since 2010 when they had 127. Aryan Patel went 22-22 for stolen bases on the season.

Under Triplett's leadership, the Bulldogs earned six Southern Conference honors, with Maddox Webb on the First Team, TJ Anderson on the Second Team, and Phillips Daniels, Garrett Dill, Travis Elliott, and Lane Tobin all named to the All-Defensive team.

Travis Elliott was named an ABCA & Rawlings NCAA Div. 1 Gold Glove Finalist.

Prior to taking the helm at The Citadel, Triplett served as the head coach at Newberry College for 14 seasons, amassing an overall record of 418-278-1. Throughout his tenure, he garnered honors as the South Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year on three occasions (2015, 2019, and 2023) while also mentoring three SAC Players of the Year, two SAC Freshmen of the Year and two SAC Conference Scholar Athletes of the Year.
 
Under his leadership, the team secured its first-ever South Atlantic Conference regular-season title in 2019. Further, the Wolves clinched both the SAC regular-season championship and the tournament championship just two seasons ago during the 2023 campaign, setting a new single-season school record behind 43 victories.
 
Beyond the program win mark, the 2023 season also featured a slew of broken records for the Wolves, including stolen bases, total hits, team batting average, on-base percentage, total runs scored, RBIs, hit-by pitches and sacrifice flies. Notably, Newberry secured the program's first-ever NCAA tournament appearance in 2019, ranking third nationally and hosting an NCAA Regional. Later in 2023, the Wolves registered their first NCAA Tournament win over UNC Pembroke.
 
Before joining the Wolves, Triplett served as the head assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at USC Upstate from 2008-2010, and prior to that as a volunteer assistant at Clemson University.
 
As a player, Triplett was a four-time letterman and a two-time second-team All-ACC shortstop at Clemson from 2000-04. He played in 222 total games for the Tigers, finishing with an overall batting average of .312. A two-time team captain, Triplett guided Clemson to four NCAA Regional appearances, two NCAA Super Regionals and a College World Series appearance in 2002.
 
Following graduation, Triplett competed as part of the New York Mets organization from 2004 to 2005. He played for the Brooklyn Cyclones (Short Season A) and the Kingsport Mets (Rookie League) in 2004 before moving up to the Binghamton Mets (Double-A) and Hagerstown Suns (Single-A) in 2005.
 
A native of West Columbia, S.C., Triplett earned his Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Clemson. Triplett and his wife, Ciria, are proud parents of three sons.