HS Baseball: Pine Grove hires Zimmerman as next head coach

Pine Grove Area High School logo

PINE GROVE — Pine Grove’s next high school baseball head coach is one of its own.

Steven Zimmerman Jr. was hired as the Cardinals’ new head coach during Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Pine Grove Area School Board of Directors.

Zimmerman replaces legendary coach Keith Lehman, who retired after last season after compiling a 376-180 overall record in 26 seasons from 2000-25. He becomes just the fourth head baseball coach at Pine Grove since 1970, a span of 55 years.

A 2014 Pine Grove graduate, Zimmerman was the starting catcher on one of Lehman’s greatest teams, the 2012 squad that went 23-7, won the Schuylkill League and District 11 Class AA titles and reached the PIAA Class AA state championship game. He homered in the state final, a 5-4 loss to Riverside in State College.

Zimmerman was a two-sport standout in high school, excelling on the football and baseball fields. In football, Zimmerman is the school’s all-time sack leader with 22.5 and quarterbacked the 2013 club to a 10-0 regular-season mark and the Twin Valley Conference championship.

On the baseball diamond, Zimmerman is still the school’s all-time leader in RBIs with 85, is second all-time in home runs and was named to the Republican-Herald All-Area team several times. He continued his baseball career at East Stroudsburg University, where he earned many honors. He spent one season playing professional baseball for the Fargo Moorhead RedHawks of the Independent American Association.

Zimmerman served as a varsity assistant at Pine Grove since 2020. He has also been an active volunteer and coach in the community with the Pine Grove Little League and Pine Grove Teener League programs.