Vanguard University

Mitch Holland steps in to become the 24th known coach in program history and landed in Costa Mesa after three seasons at the University of San Diego as an assistant coach.  
  
Holland completed his third season at USD under Coach Ungricht, with the Toros holding an 89-75-1 overall record during that span and a 51-23-1 conference mark.  His first year at USD was the peak of those three seasons, as San Diego went 41-15, 20-4, and won the West Coast Conference regular season and tournament.  With a win over a ranked Texas team during the year, the Toros beat Fresno State at the Santa Barbara Regional but fell to UCSB in the next elimination game.  USD (28-30, 19-5) started the season 3-17, but rewrote their own story the rest of the season, going 25-13 the rest of the way.  With one over upset UCLA and an 18-2 close to the conference slate, USD won the WCC title again.  The squad lost the first game of the WCC Tournament, but in poetic symmetry to the regular season, the Toros won the next three games, including a 16-13, 14-inning thriller against Saint Mary’s to force a rematch for the title.  Although the Toros lost the second tilt 9-8 to place second, the turnaround remains one of the biggest second-half surges in USD program history.  In 2026, USD went 20-30-1, 12-14-1, and completed the campaign in eighth in the WCC standings.  During those three years, Holland assisted in developing 22 All-Conference players, six All-WCC Honorable Mentions, and seven on the All-Freshman Team.  Included in that is the 2024 WCC Player of the Year in Jako Christian, who went on to be an American Baseball Coaches Association First Team All-American, the second person in program history to reach that height.  Ungricht was named the WCC Coach of the Year in 2024 and 2025, there were six major award winners during the past three campaigns, and seven players were drafted from USD between 2024 and 2025, with the 2026 draft still to come.

The WCC history runs a year deeper for Holland, who spent the 2022-23 school year at Loyola Marymount, helping another Coach of the Year nab a title.  LMU went 29-24 overall and 21-6 to take the regular season trophy, Coach Nathan Choate was named the COTY, three players took major WCC awards, and three players were drafted from that team.  Prior to coaching at the DI level, Holland worked at Saddleback CC as the recruiting coordinator and the hitting and infield coach, with a role as the assistant coach at JSerra High School the year before.  His first coaching gig after graduating was with the Rochester Ridgemen, a summer-league team where Holland also worked with Athletes in Action.

The rest of Holland’s resume comes from his time at UCI, where he played from 2014-16 under Mike Gillespie, the current record holder at UCI for most wins as a head coach.  Holland hit .312 in 404 at-bats, notching seven home runs, 67 RBI, and an OBP of .375 across 107 games.  He was named to the All-Big West Second Team in 2015 and was awarded an Honorable Mention slot in 2016.  He was named a Big West Player of the Week in 2015 and had the third-best batting average on the team with the second-most RBI, while the team went 33-23, 15-9.  He was third in hits and RBI on the team in 2016, as the squad finished with a 31-25, 11-13 line.  He then joined Coach Gillespie for the 2016-17 school year, when UCI went 22-31, 7-13.  But after the jaunts to JSerra and Saddleback, Holland returned to UCI and new coach Ben Orloff, with Holland helping as the catching and assisting hitting coach.  Over the next three seasons, Holland aided UCI to seasons over .500 and a 2021 Big West Conference title.  The Anteaters went 83-49, 48-22, which does include the COVID-destroyed 2020 season.  The 2021 title-winning team had three All-Americans, two major Big West award winners, eight All-Big West selections, and Coach Orloff was named the Coach of the Year.  The 2022 side had five All-Big West honorees and one All-Region player.
 
Holland graduated from UCI in 2016 with a Bachelor of Political Science, and he followed that with a Master’s of Business Administration with an emphasis in Sports Business from Grand Canyon University in 2018.

Holland is married and wife Kaylin joins hime in Orange County.