Payson High School is excited to announce that our new head baseball coach will be Coach Riley Daniels. Outgoing head coach Hadley Thorpe has accepted the head coach job at Spanish Fork High School. We are grateful to Coach Thorpe for his years of service to the PHS baseball community.
Our new head coach, Coach Daniels, grew up in Spanish Fork, where he played baseball and basketball and was a member of the 2015 baseball team that won the state championship. After graduating in 2015, he was recruited to play baseball at Southern Virginia University. While at SVU, he started 78 games over four seasons, playing mainly shortstop and pitcher, was named as Academic All-Conference, and made the Provost’s List.
The most important thing that happened while at SVU was Riley meeting his future wife Megan, who serves as one of our PHS guidance counselors. They were married in January of 2020. After college, Coach Daniels began a teaching and coaching career. Most recently he has been teaching science at Mt. Nebo Middle School while also serving as an assistant coach to PHS baseball. This coming school year, Coach Daniels will be moving into PHS, not only as the new head coach, but also as a talented science teacher.
They currently reside in Nephi, UT, and welcomed their daughter Lyla in September of 2022.
We wish the outgoing Coach Hadley the very best of success. And we are excited to see the great things PHS baseball will accomplish under Coach Riley’s leadership.