Head baseball coach Chris Celano announced the addition of veteran coach Ray Guarino to his staff for the 2023 season.
Guarino brings 20+ years of high school, club, and collegiate coaching experience to Charger Nation, including locally as he led the West Haven High School Westies to the 2009 Class LL State Championship as they finished out the season ranked No. 1 in Connecticut with a record of 21-3.
Prior to making the transition to New Haven, Guarino spent the last two seasons at the University of Bridgeport where he worked with the pitchers and handled defensive strategies alongside head coach Joe Tonelli, whose father was a long-time assistant at New Haven under legendary head coach Frank “Porky” Vieira. Tonelli’s father, Joe, was inducted in the New Haven Athletics Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 1986.
Prior to taking the roll at Bridgeport, Guarino spent 11 seasons as an assistant coach at Yale University where he had a hand in all aspects of the team; hitting, pitching, defense and base running. The highlight for the Bulldogs during his time at Yale was a 2017 season in which the Bulldogs posted a school record 34 wins, while capturing the regular season and Ivy League tournament championships and advancing to the Corvalis Regional in Oregon.
In addition to his collegiate experience, Guarino spent the 2013-19 summers as the head coach of the Hamden Post 88 19U American Legion program. During his time, he saw 21 of his legion players go on to play at the collegiate level and led Hamden to the South Regional Semifinal in 2019.
In the summer of 2020, Guarino was named the head coach of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League’s New Britain Bees where four of his players were taken in the Major League Baseball amateur draft. In the two summers since, he has served as an assistant coach for the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s Mystic Schooners, where he will go return this summer.
In addition to his coaching duties, Guarino has been a teacher for the last 23 years at All Saints Catholic Academy in New Haven, formerly St Francis/St. Rose of Lima School. At All Saints, Guarino teaches middle school History, ELA, and Religion.
New Haven will open up its 47-game slate later this month with the first of two trips to Mytle Beach. The first venture to South Carolina will include single games against Wilmington. Chestnut Hill and Molloy, with the season-opener against the Wildcats set for February 24.
Guarino resides in Milford with his wife, Jackie.
