Former baseball assistant Tony Cappuccilli with UNLV in NCAAs

Former baseball assistant Tony Cappuccilli with UNLV in NCAAs

Former Irvine Valley baseball assistant coach Tony Cappuccilli has helped UNLV reach the postseason in his first year as part of the Rebel coaching staff.

Cappuccilli, who is a volunteer assistant coach for UNLV, spent the previous four seasons with the Lasers.

UNLV won the Mountain West regular season title and has a record of 35-23 overall.

UNLV is the No. 2 seed in the Corvallis (Oregon) Regional of the NCAA Tournament that begins on Friday.

The Rebels will open tournament play against No. 3 UC Irvine (35-22) on Friday afternoon.

The Rebels earned their first at-large bid since 1989 and will be playing in their 11th NCAA Tournament.

The winner between the Rebels and Anteaters will play the winner of No. 1 Oregon State and No. 4 North Dakota State on Saturday night.

Oregon State is the No. 1 overall seed.

Cappuccilli was the top assistant at Irvine Valley, a key recruiter and batting coach.

He is also the current head coach of the Alaska Baseball League during the summer months.

The native of Huntington Beach was a star player at Edison High and then at the University of Nevada Reno.

He helped the Wolf Pack to a Big West Championship in 2000.

When at Edison, Cappuccilli broke the Orange County career home run record.