Ford Ladd joined the Penn State baseball coaching staff in July 2025 as director of pitching technology.
In 2026, the Nittany Lions won 16 games, including nine in Big Ten play.
Penn State’s wins included five over RPI Top 100 teams: Purdue (54), Maryland (85), Ohio State (87), Iowa (67) and Minnesota (93).
On the mound, Ben Hudson and Isaiah Shayter tied first in the Big Ten and 11th in the country with 14 games started. Mason Horwat was ninth in the Big Ten with 25 pitching appearances. Colin Fitzgerald was eighth in the Big Ten in strikeouts per nine innings (10.64).
Ben DeMell finished his Penn State career with 81 pitching appearances, sitting fourth all-time at PSU.
Fitzgerald tallied 67 strikeouts in 56 innings in 2026. He had 7+ strikeouts in four starts including 10+ strikeouts in two starts.
Hudson had five outings going 5+ innings, while Shayter had three outings with 5+ strikeouts.
Thirteen members of the pitching staff made 11+ appearances.
The Nittany Lions pitched two shutouts on the mound, a 1-0 win over Richmond and a 4-0 win over Washington. The shutout against Washington was PSU’s first against a Big Ten opponent since April 10, 2021 against Purdue (11-0).
Between April 24-May 14 (Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, Maryland), Penn State held Big Ten opponents to five or less runs in 10-straight games, the first time Penn State has accomplished that since joining the Big Ten.
PSU held conference opponents to five or less runs in 10-straight games for the first time since 1987 as a member of the Atlantic 10.
Ladd spent the 2025 season as pitching coach/strength & conditioning coach at Georgia Gwinnett College.
Ladd served two seasons as assistant coach at Benedictine University Mesa.
He oversaw the pitching staff at McCook CC in Nebraska in 2022 after serving as coordinator of research and development for Georgia Gwinnett College, helping GGC to a 2021 NAIA Baseball World Series championship.
Ladd spent two summers working in the Appalachian League. He was the data/video coordinator for the Danville Otterbots in 2021 and the pitching coach for the Princeton WhistlePigs in 2022.
In Summer 2019, Ladd was a player development intern for the Cape Cod League in Wareham, Mass.
The Longmont, Colo. native graduated from New York University’s Stern School of Business in May 2020. He played baseball at NYU from 2016-20, serving as team captain his last two years.