University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point Men's Baseball

Richter is entering his sixth season UW-Stevens Point as the head baseball coach in 2026. He is the 15th coach in program history and just the third since his playing days under Pat Bloom in 2004.   In 2024, he harnessed the successes of senior Bradley Comer who wrapped the season with ABCA/Rawlings and d3baseball.com All-America honors. Comer became the all-time leader with his 51st career home run along with a ABCA NCAA Div. III Region 9 All-Defensive team nod. In 2023, he led the Pointers to the second WIAC regular season championship in his first three seasons. He also picked up his 100th victory, the fastest coach in program history to reach the milestone. He guided UWSP to the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight season, forcing a decisive game in the Super Regionals. Bradley Comer was named an All-American, one of four all-region selections and one of nine All-WIAC picks under Richter in 2023. Richter led the Pointers to a third-place finish at the College World Series in 2022 with a 42-10 record. He was named WIAC Coach of the year for the second year in a row with eight players earning All-WIAC honors. Four players were named to the all-region teams with Aaron Simmons and Lucas Luedtke named as All-American selections. His Pointers recorded 42 wins and drew 278 walks, the most in program history. The 466 runs scored was the second most in program history. The 84 home runs, 481 RBI, and 76 stolen bases were also top-5 marks in program history. The NCAA Regional game against North Central matched the program record for most runs in an inning with 14, and most runs per game with 27. In his first season at the helm, Richter led the Pointers to the 2021 WIAC regular season title with a 24-4 record in league action.  He was named the WIAC Coach of the Year with eight players landing on the All-WIAC list.  He coached four all-region selections with Sidney Ferry and Aaron Simmons picking up All-American honors.  His Pointers belted 57 home runs and hit 13 triples, top-5 marks in program history.   Richter came back to UWSP after most recently spending a season as an assistant coach at UW-Oshkosh.  There he helped the Titans knock off a pair of ranked opponent in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.  He also served as head coach of the Impact Sports Academy 17U Royal Team that went 20-10-1.   Prior to arriving in Oshkosh, Richter spent five years as an assistant coach at DII Northwood University of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in Midland, Mich.  There, he helped the Timberwolves to their first-ever back-to-back regular season and tournament championships in 2017 and 2018.  All five seasons he was at NU were winning seasons, racking up a 170-97 record, the first stretch of five-straight winning seasons in the 52-year history of the program.   While with the Timberwolves, Richter helped NU rewrite the record books.  The team won a school record 46 games in 2017.  In 2015, he led NU to 20 conference wins, the most in school history and the Timberwolves’ .625 conference win percentage, the best in program history.  In addition to the league titles, Richter led NU to 84 wins over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, obliterating the previous two-year win total of 55 prior to his arrival.   Following Richter’s playing days, he spent eight seasons as an assistant coach at St. Norbert College.  During his time at SNC, he helped the Green Knights compile a 192-105 record (.646) while racking up six of the seven winningest seasons in program history.  SNC made NCAA Division III Tournament appearances in 2009, 2012 and 2014 and won the Midwest Conference North Division title five times while Richter was there.  He coached 52 all-conference players, five Conference Players of the Year and one MLB draft pick while at SNC.   Richter also spent a season as an assistant coach with the Green Bay Bullfrogs in 2012, a team that featured 15 future MLB draft picks.  In 2011, he was the head coach of the Manitowoc Bandits and led the team to the Northeast Wisconsin League title.   Richter played for the Pointers from 2002 through 2006, culminating in a run to a fifth-place finish in the College World Series his final season.  While at UWSP, he led the Pointers to a 161-69-1 record and three NCAA Tournament appearances.  As a three-year starter at second base, Richter batted .295 with 15 home runs and a .951 fielding percentage in his career.  He was teammates with MLB All-Star Jordan Zimmermann in 2006.   A graduate of UWSP, Richter earned his bachelor’s degree in 2006.  He completed his master’s degree at St. Norbert in 2014.  

Haupt returns to UWSP after spending the summer of 2025 as the head pitching coach for the Wausau Woodchucks, where he coached two all star pitchers.   That followed two seasons at Concordia University, Nebraska. There, he was the associate pitching coach and helped the Bulldogs to an 83-28 record and a top-20 ranking at the end of both seasons. He coached two All-Americans, four different GPAC Players of the Year and a pair of players that went on to play professionally.   During his first stint on the UWSP coaching staff from 2021 to 2023, Haupt helped the Pointers win their first WIAC postseason title since 2015. The Pointers went on to win both an NCAA Regional and Super Regional to advance to the 2022 DIII College World Series and set the record for wins in a season (42). Haupt also attended UWSP as a player and was a team captain for three years from 2019-2022. In his final season of playing, the Pointers clinched their first conference title in over 10 years. Haupt was an all-conference honorable mention for WIAC play in his final season.      Haupt graduated from UWSP in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2025, he completed his master of business administration degree at Concordia University, Nebraska.  

Opper is in his ninth year as an assistant with the Pointers in 2025. In 2023, his pitching staff posted the sixth-most strikeouts in a season in program history. The Pointers won the WIAC regular season for the second time in three years and advanced to the decisive third game of the NCAA Super Regionals. He coached five All-WIAC selections and two all-regions pitchers in 2023.   Opper coached the UWSP pitching staff to a third-place finish at the 2022 College World Series. The Pointers pitching staff had a record of 22-6 in league play. Pitchers Sidney Ferry and Marcus Jaworski posted 1.000 winning percentages in the 2022 season. Ferry was named to the ABCA Second-Team All-Region, the D3Baseball Second-Team All-Region, and the All-WIAC First Team. Two other members of the pitching staff earned All-WIAC honors – Casey Pickering and Austin Syvertson. His staff’s 352 strikeouts in 2022 was the fourth-most in program history. In 2021, Opper guided the UWSP pitching staff to a 24-4 record in league play.  Over the 43 games, his staff issued just 99 walks, the second-fewest in program history.  Closer Sidney Ferry was a fourth-team All-American selection by D3Baseball and five members of the pitching staff earned All-WIAC honors - Ferry, Nick Carpenter, Zack Haupt, Casey Pickering and JD Schultz. In his first season, the Pointers' pitching staff set a program record for fewest hits allowed (298) and tied the team record with 14 saves.  Four members of the staff, Cole Erickson, Ben Miller, Nathan Mulzer and Drew Spaeth, were named to the all-conference teams in 2018. He coached at the high school level for 17 years (16 years in Rosholt, one year in Stevens Point) with three trips to state, including a state runner-up finish.  He has also coached Legion for seven years in Plover having made five trips to state including two state runner-up finishes, a state title and one National Regional runner-up finish. He graduated from UW-Stout in 2000, where he was a pitcher, and has worked with pitchers in the area on their development and advancement to college careers in the game.