Centre County head baseball coach hits 300th win, milestone in ’25 years of greatness’
Philipsburg-Osceola baseball head coach Doug Sankey thought that he’d notch his 300th victory last season.
The Mounties started the 2021 season 6-0. With only four victories away from reaching the feat, the rain came and the team only won two more games to finish 8-8 on the year. So the 25-year coaching veteran entered an April 20 matchup with Clearfield just one win away. He reached the pinnacle — watching his team grind out a 6-4 victory over Clearfield for the elusive milestone.
“It felt pretty good playing Clearfield,” Sankey said on April 28. “Their coach at Clearfield was my assistant when I first started. It was nice to get the best of those guys.”
As a multi-sport athlete, (football, wrestling and baseball) junior Ben Gustkey has been a part of many of P-O’s victories and was excited to be part of one of the biggest of Sankey’s career.
“Three hundred is a number that not a lot of coaches reach because not as many coaches stick around for 25 years as a head coach,” Gustkey said. “It’s always been 25 years of greatness and that’s a long time. To beat a team like Clearfield that’s an archrival to us and we have a good game against all of the time and we had great game against them that day, it felt great.”
Sankey began his career in 1997 as a 24-year-old head coach, with the support of then-athletic director Dick Wood and softball head coach Jim Gonder. The future Mounties head coach was a guidance counselor at West Branch, which allowed him to move into the fold seamlessly.
“Those first couple of years, we just had really, really good teams,” Sankey said. “There was a lot of talent. We got off to a good start and we kind of built the momentum. Ever since then, we’ve had a good feeder system, our Little League is strong and we’ve just been fortunate to have really good assistant coaches. Tyler (Good) has been with me the longest and I’ve had a lot of great assistants, including my dad, an ex-minor leaguer. So, that helps.”
Since 1997, P-O has sent 40 players to play collegiate baseball, with some making it to the minors and first baseman Matt Adams reaching the major leagues in 2012 with the St. Louis Cardinals. The longtime P-O head coach also inspired a number of former players to become coaches, including Good, a 2005 graduate who played four years under Sankey and is now in his 13th year as assistant to his former coach.
“Getting his 300th win last week was the culmination of the consistency and the approach that he’s shown with our players every day,” Good said. “Every day in and out, we’re working on everything to improve anything. It’s been a true honor to be a part of the program and coach alongside of him.”
The magic of win No. 300 still wasn’t lost on the team more than a week later. On Thursday they found themselves down 2-1 in the seventh inning against Bald Eagle. P-O outfielder Jeremy Whitehead rocketed a home run blast over the right portion of the center field wall with two outs to tie 2-2. Colby Hahn finished off the game with a two-out double to plate Parker White for the game-winning run at 3-2.
Sankey is looking forward to watching his team in any fashion, especially the way that they fought toward victory against the Eagles.
“I can’t wait to continue to coach these guys for years to come,” he said.
