DURHAM, N.C. - USA Baseball announced on Thursday that Rob Shabansky has been named the pitching coach for the 15U National Team, replacing Karsten Whitson, who recently joined the coaching staff at the University of South Florida. Shabanksy will also serve as the pitching coordinator for the 14U National Team Development Program (NTDP) in 2019.
Shabansky is a four-time USA Baseball national team coaching alum, having most recently served as the manager for the 2017 15U National Team, where he led his team to a 7-1 overall record and a COPABE Pan Am "AA" Championships gold medal. He was also an assistant coach on the 2011 16U National Team and the pitching coach for the 2015 and 2016 15U National Teams. He won gold medals with both the 16U squad and the 2015 15U team, and under his direction, the 2015 and 2016 15U pitching staffs recorded collective ERAs of 3.36 and 2.57, respectively. Additionally, he also served as a pitching coach for the 2016 14U NTDP. 
A graduate of the University of Arizona, Shabansky was a standout pitcher for the Wildcats baseball program. As a sophomore, he led the Wildcats in wins (8) and ERA (3.86). He was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 1998 MLB First-Year Player Draft and played four seasons of professional baseball. Shabansky just wrapped up his 14th season as the Head Coach at GateWay Community College (Phoenix, Ariz.), where he recently led the Geckos to the NJCAA Division II Baseball World Series Championship Game in 2016.
The 15U National Team will be selected through a two-phase trial system that will begin in July at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. Phase I will feature 72 players identified from the 2018 National Team Identification Series, 2018 14U NTDP, the 2019 National Team Championships and the 2019 14U NTDP. Thirty-four of those athletes will then be invited to Phase II before 20 players will be named to the final roster on July 31. 
The 2019 15U National Team will train in Houston, Texas from September 6-10, before competing in the 2019 COPABE U-15 Pan-American Championships from September 13-22 in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Team USA is the three-time defending gold medalists in the U-15 Pan-American Championships (2013, 2015, 2017) and most recently won its first-ever WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup title in 2018.
For more information on the 15U National Team, visit USABaseball.com, or follow along on Twitter at @USABaseball15U.