Harvell, Sirianni Recognized by D1Baseball

Nebraska Baseball assistant coaches Lance Harvell and Mike Sirianni were recognized by D1Baseball as two of the Top 100 Assistant Coaches on the Rise this week.

Nebraska is one of 20 programs nationally with at least two assistant coaches on the list, including one of three Big Ten programs.

Entering his fifth season with the Huskers, Harvell coaches hitters and outfielders while also serving as Nebraska’s third-base coach.

Harvell directed one of the nation’s most-improved offenses last season, as the Huskers had the ninth-best turnaround in batting average and home runs while slugging a school-record 97 home runs in 2023. The Big Red also turned in the 11th-best improvement in hits and home runs per game last season.

Under Harvell, the Huskers hit a Big Ten-best .279 in 2021 and had a 2021 recruiting class recognized nationally. The 15-member class, which included a trio of top-200 prospects, was ranked 20th by Perfect Game, 21st by Baseball America and 36th by Collegiate Baseball.

Sirianni is in his first season with the Huskers after spending the previous four seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Wichita State.

The first-year NU assistant comes to Lincoln after spearheading two of the best recruiting classes in Wichita State baseball history with a 32nd-ranked class in 2021 and 26th-ranked class in 2022 by Perfect Game.

During his four seasons at Wichita State, Sirianni coached a third-team All-American, a freshman All-American, a John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Finalist and 17 all-conference selections. In his inaugural campaign as the Shockers’ assistant coach, he helped Wichita State to a 13-2 record in a shortened 2020 season, which included the program’s longest winning streak since 2008 of 12 games.

Compiled by D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers and Mike Rooney, the requirement for making the list is that the coach hasn’t been a head coach before and must have been an assistant in Division I baseball during the 2023 season.