GREENSBORO, N.C. - The American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) released their regional coaches of the year on Tuesday, with Northwest Nazarene's Joe Schaefer earning the honor for the DII West Region.

Schaefer elevated the NNU baseball program to new heights in 2025, achieving the best overall season of any Northwest Nazarene team, regardless of sport, in the school's 24-year NCAA Division II history. 

The Nighthawks finished the year with a record of 46-16, claiming the GNAC Regular Season Championship, GNAC Tournament Championship, and NCAA West Region Championship, and winning two games in Cary to advance farther than any NNU team at the DII Baseball Championships. NNU was ranked No. 3 in the nation in the final National College Baseball Writers of America (NCBWA) poll, the highest in program history.

Schaefer is the only coach in NNU history to win an NCAA West Region title, and he has now done it twice after breaking through for the first one in the 2021 season. The squad was also the first in Northwest Nazarene athletics history to reach an NCAA National Semifinal, with the previous high being a tie between the 2021 baseball team and the 2022 men's soccer team that each finished in the final eight in the nation. 

The 46 wins this year shattered the previous program record of 36 and are also a GNAC record. As a team, the Nighthawks also set new NNU single-season records for games played, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs (tied), RBIs, total bases, walks, sacrifice flies, sacrifice bunts, shutouts, and innings pitched.

The honor is Schaefer's fourth regional coach of the year award of his career and second from the ABCA, joining NCBWA and ABCA West Region COTY honors in the 2021 season and an NCBWA nod last year.