Rutgers baseball coach Steve Owens and the journey to 1,000 victories

On Tuesday, Rutgers got a dominant pitching performance to shut out Hofstra. When the game was over, head coach Steve Owens achieved an incredible milestone as a head coach.

Owen now sits at 1,000 wins in a career that has spanned three decades. With this achievement, he is now one of nine active Division I coaches to total wins in four figures.

In 1992, Owens began his journey as a head coach and had immediate success. At Cortland State, he led the team to seven consecutive trips to the NCAA Regionals and four appearances in the NCAA Division III World Series. After three straight appearances from 1997-99, Owens took his first Division I job at Le Moyne.

New level, same success for Owens. He led the Dolphins to 11 consecutive winning seasons and three appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Le Moyne made back-to-back appearances to the NCAA Regionals in 2003 and 2004, when he won his first of two MAAC Coach of the Year awards. In 2007, Owens hit win No. 500 and was one of the youngest coaches to ever do so.

Owens continued to move up after 11 years at Le Moyne. He accepted a job at Bryant and helped the team win 30 or more games four years in a row. This includes two straight 40 win seasons. Bryant became eligible for the postseason in 2013. That year, Owens led the Bulldogs to a record of 45-18-1 and an upset over Arkansas in the regional.

In 2016, Bryan won a school-record of 47 games and was ranked as high as 15th in the polls. Owens left the Bulldogs in 2019 when he was hired by Rutgers.

Owens began his career with 245 wins at Cortland State before totaled 342 at Le Moyne. He enjoyed nine incredible seasons at Bryant where he won 327 games. Now, he logged his 1,000th win as head coach of the Scarlet Knights — and there are many more to come.