Arizona baseball: Wildcats alum Shelley Duncan wins Northwest League Championship in first year as manager

This is pretty cool

There was a point in time before the 2015 Arizona Wildcats baseball season that former Arizona slugger Shelley Duncan was going to be on Andy Lopez' coaching staff, possibly setting him self up as the heir to the throne.

But the Arizona Diamondbacks came knocking, and hired Duncan as the manager of their Short Season affiliate, the Hillsboro Hops.

That move definitely paid off for the organization on Sunday night, as the Hops won the Northwest League Championship.

Hillsboro Hops 2015 NW league Champions!! What a team!!! So happy right now and so proud of this team. #champs #allhoppedup #embracethesuck

— Shelley Duncan (@shelldunc) September 14, 2015

2015 @Dbacks @MLBDraft picks Swanson, Young & Clarke and @HillsboroHops win NWL Championship http://t.co/mxh7DlqrK3 http://pic.twitter.com/rvuqQ1ErAp

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) September 14, 2015

Freitas Cup is back at #RonTonkinField for another year! #AllHoppedUp http://pic.twitter.com/RhMSC28lxP

— Hillsboro Hops (@HillsboroHops) September 14, 2015

"To get a bunch of guys at a low-level Minor League team to commit themselves to winning is special," Duncan told MiLB.com after the game. "We were handed a really good team by our farm director and people in the organization. The talent was through the roof."

It's pretty cool that Duncan was able to win a league championship in his first year as a manager. With two Arizona Wildcats already managing MLB teams in Chip Hale (Diamondbacks) and Terry Francona (Indians), maybe we'll see another one in Shelley Duncan in the coming years.

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