Ace Brogna

The 2017 season marked Ace Brogna’s second year as an assistant coach with Keystone College’s baseball team and the his experience proved to be invaluable to the Giants, who have posted a 73-26 overall record over the past two seasons while winning Colonial States Athletic Conference titles both years.

In 2016, Keystone posted a 40-11 overall record and earned an NCAA Divsision III National Runner-Up finish at the Collegiate World Series after the Giants won both the NCAA New England Regional championship and the CSAC championship. The following year, Brogna helped guide Keystone to a 33-15 overall record, another CSAC title, and third place finish as the NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament.

Brogna, a former professional baseball player in the Minnesota Twins organization, was a three-time conference coach of the year at King’s College and has been an assistant coach locally at Lackawanna College and Pittston High School.

Brogna was a member of the Minnesota Twins organization from 1961-1963 and played for three teams in MLB’s club’s farm system. Brogna enjoyed stints as the third baseman for Wythville (Va.) in the Appalachian League, Fort Walton Beach in the Florida State League, and with Erie in the New York-Penn League.

Brogna returned to the dugout as the head baseball coach at King’s College from 1991-2001. During his time as the helm of the Monarchs’ program, Brogna was named the Middle Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year three times and led the teams to a pair of MAC Championships and a share of a third title. Brogna also mentored two players who were selected in the MLB draft.

Since 2002, Brogna has served as the assistant varsity baseball coach at Pittston Area High School and, since 2009, has assisted at nearby Lackawanna College. He has also served on the Northeast Baseball Board of Directors since 1983 and was instrumental in helping to bring professional baseball back to Northeastern Pennsylvania with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons (now Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders) joining the AAA Eastern League in 1989.

Brogna has been a sports official for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) since 1967, highlighted by refereeing two states football championship games and one state basketball contest. He also spent 10 years as an NCAA football official and was the standby official for a Division III national championship game.

Brogna has also worked more than 20 years in the banking industry including as the executive vice president for the Wyoming National Bank/Wachovia Bank in Wilkes-Barre and has been an executive assistant to a state senator since 1991.

Active in the community, Brogna serves on the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce and the Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Conference and has been heavily involved in the Wilkes-Barre Catholic Youth Center.

A standout football player in college, Brogna earned Little All-American honors as a sophomore tight end at King’s, where he graduated from in 1961 before joining the United States Marine Corps Reserves.