2025 PUP baseball Coach of the Year: Indiana’s Dan Petroff

After seeing his Indiana team finish as WPIAL and PIAA Class 4A runner-up in 2024, Dan Petroff sought an upgrade this season.

Indiana hoped to turn 2s into 1s in 2025, a goal the Indians eventually achieved, albeit after working lots and lots of overtime.

Petroff’s club was the cardiac kids of the postseason, with Petroff, in just his second season as head coach, even joking that he might need a new heart when things were all said and done. Indiana played games that lasted 9, 11, 12 and 17 innings, with the two-day, 17-inning semifinal battle against East Pennsboro being the longest in PIAA playoff history.

Indiana’s WPIAL championship win against Elizabeth Forward featured a walk-off home run by Charlie Manzi in the 11th inning. And while the Indians didn’t go extras in the PIAA title game, they did need to escape a bases-loaded jam with no outs in the seventh to claim a one-run win.

Despite playing close game after close game, Indiana seemed to always find a way to come out on top during a season in which the Indians went 26-1 and won WPIAL and PIAA titles for the first time.

For that, Petroff has been named Pittsburgh Union Progress baseball Coach of the Year. All coaches in the WPIAL and City League were considered for the honor that was selected by the PUP sports staff.

Petroff, 51, is a 1992 Punxsutawney High School graduate who played for a state title in his senior season, only it was in basketball, not baseball. Petroff was the top scorer and rebounder on the Punxsutawney basketball team that beat Penn Hills in the PIAA Class 4A semifinals before losing to Steelton-Highspire in the final at Hersheypark Arena.

But Petroff’s No. 1 love has long been baseball, a sport that he played professionally. Petroff was drafted by the California Angels in 1993 and spent a few seasons in the minor leagues.

And while Petroff has only been a head coach for two seasons, he has coached at Indiana for a number of years. He was an assistant from 1999-2005 and again from 2016-23 under previous coach Bill Thompson, who guided the Indians to the PIAA playoffs for the first time in 2023.

Petroff lives in Indiana and works in the Office of International Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has two children — Alec, 24, and Adriana, 20.

Q: Favorite moment from the season?

A: I think just the fact that we won the way we won. Twenty-six wins in a season is a lot. A lot of them were in comeback fashion or extra-inning fashion. It was all hard work. We didn’t have any wins where we just showed up and breezed by a team. 

Q: You guys played some marathon games in the postseason, how’s the heart doing?

A: It’s holding up. I think I just got used to it after the first couple of games. We were just trying to keep the TV ratings high.

Q: You had so many good pitchers. Was it ever a challenge to make sure they all got enough work?

A: Yeah, very much. And in the playoffs, we had three or four guys that definitely should have gotten some pitching work. We did play a lot of innings, but we needed a few more.

Q: Unsung hero on this team?

A: Ethan Shank. He doesn’t get enough credit. He’s a catcher, and he handles the pitchers great. He calls timeouts and talks to the pitchers to calm them down. He’s a three-year starter. He’s been the man for us back there.

Q: One thing you would change about high school baseball?

A: I wish we could play more games. It’s fine if a high school program wants to play two scrimmages and 20 games, but I don’t know why there’s a limit. We don’t get to play as many games in PA as schools do in a lot of other states. Some play 30 or 40 regular-season games. The kids want to play.

Q: You grew up in Punxsutawney … how many trips did you make to Gobbler’s Knob over the years?

A: When I was younger I would make the trip, back in elementary school and high school. But it’s too cold and too early in the morning for me.

Q: Favorite MLB player growing up?

A: I was always a Roger Clemens fan. I was a pitcher myself, and I mimicked him a little.

Q: You spent a few seasons playing in the minor leagues. What was that like?

A: It was an awesome experience. I traveled all over the country, granted in a lot of buses. But it was still great to see a lot of places I had never seen, and I got to meet a lot of people.

Q: Anyone you played with or against that went on to become a big star?

A: There were a bunch, but probably the best I ever faced was Todd Helton. I played a few years against him. He was good.

Q: If you played H-O-R-S-E with your players and assistants, are you coming out on top?

A: I think so, but I’m getting old. It’s funny, though. When I go back to Punxy, people 30 years later will talk about that basketball season. I’ve done a lot in baseball, but they always talk about that basketball team. It’s kind of funny. Hopefully this gives people a new memory of me.