Cliff Smith finished his sixth season as head coach of the Elizabethtown College baseball team in 2012, leading the team to a dramatic postseason appearance on the final day of the regular season. Hired in December 2006, Smith delivered Commonwealth Conference Championships in 2007 and 2009, and has gone 141-102 overall.
The ninth head coach at Elizabethtown since the program's beginning in 1930, Smith led the Blue Jays to their 1,000th win all-time, a Commonwealth Conference title and an NCAA Division III Tournament appearance in 2007 —his first year in the dugout. E-town returned to the NCAA Tournament after winning the conference title in 2009.
On April 28, the Blue Jays' postseason hopes relied on sweeping a doubleheader at Messiah. E-town won game one, 2-1, and exploded for 15 runs in game two, assuring the program its 14th straight conference playoff berth. E-town would up take a game from Lebanon Valley at the conference championships, but came up just shy of reaching its sixth straight championship game under Smith. The team finished with a 20-22 record, giving Smith his fifth 20-win season.
The Blue Jays' 2011 season finished with an even 19-19 record, and featured an equally dramatic regular season finale. E-town took two of three games from Lebanon Valley to claim the conference’s final playoff spot. Once there, the Blue and Gray avenged three heartbreaking, 5-4, losses to nationally-ranked Alvernia in the regular season by eliminating the Crusaders, ranked eighth in the country at the time, from the tournament with wins on consecutive days.
Smith’s club got the job done at the plate and in the field. E-town ranked third in the conference in batting, combining to hit .302 as a team in 2011. The Jays also committed the fewest errors of any league team and had a conference-best .968 fielding percentage.
A 2001 alum of Brandeis University, Smith became the fastest coach in the program’s 82-season history to reach 100 wins, doing so in a 9-3 victory at Arcadia on May 1, 2010. The personal benchmark came in yet another season of accomplishment for the Blue Jays under Smith. In five of his eight seasons, E-town has won 20 games or more. The Jays finished 2010 with a 24-16 record and as the Commonwealth Conference Runner-up.
Prior to joining Elizabethtown, Smith was an assistant coach at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and an educational technician in the special education department at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Maine.
Bowdoin set a school record in wins in 2006, going 28-10, and advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament with Smith as an assistant. At Bowdoin, Smith was involved in recruiting, fundraising, developing off-season strength and conditioning programs, instruction in skills and strategy, and day-to-day managerial duties. He worked as the pitching coach, managed Bowdoin’s recruiting files and database, and coordinated all recruiting visits as well. The Bowdoin pitching staff had a 3.30 earned run average in 2006.
Smith earned his bachelor of arts in history from Brandeis in 2001 before beginning a five-year minor league career from 2001-05. In the off-season he was also an assistant pitching coach, equipment room assistant and basketball scoreboard operator at Brandeis, as well as a substitute teacher in the Haverhill (Mass.) School Department.
A native of Massachusetts and a resident of New England for most of his life, Smith familiarized himself with Lancaster County as a member of the independent Atlantic League's Lancaster Barnstormers in 2005. He also spent four years in the minor league system of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
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| Cliff Smith Year-by-Year |
| Overall | Conference | |
| Year | Wins | Losses | Pct. | Wins | Losses | Pct. | Postseason |
| 2007 | 23 | 18 | .561 | 13 | 8 | .619 | Commonwealth Conference Champions
NCAA Division III Tournament Qualifier |
| 2008 | 26 | 12 | .684 | 10 | 2 | .833 | Commonwealth Conference Runner-Up |
| 2009 | 29 | 15 | .659 | 12 | 3 | .800 | Commonwealth Conference Champions
NCAA Division III Tournament Qualifier |
| 2010 | 24 | 16 | .600 | 11 | 7 | .611 | Commonwealth Conference Runner-Up |
| 2011 | 19 | 19 | .500 | 10 | 8 | .556 | Commonwealth Conference Runner-Up |
| 2012 | 20 | 22 | .455 | 9 | 9 | .500 | Commonwealth Conference Tournament Qualifier |
| 6 seasons | 141 | 102 | .580 | 65 | 37 | .637 | |
Updated on 5/30/12
