AUBURN —   Dirigo High School baseball coach Ryan Palmer has been named head coach of the fall baseball team at Central Maine Community College, the Auburn college announced on Wednesday.

Palmer will continue his duties as coach at Dirigo, where he has led the Cougars to back-to-back Class C state championships in 2012-13.

“This is a great opportunity for me,” Palmer said in a school press release. “I’ve always been known as a CM boy, and it has always felt like home to me.  My goal is to get the baseball program back to the top where it once was.”

“Ryan has always been a true blue CM boy and has carried that pride with him since he left,” Central Maine Community College athletic director Dave Gonyea said. “The program has regressed the past few years and needs a shot in the arm.  I think Ryan is the right person to get us back on track.  His record speaks for itself and I am thrilled he has chosen to return to help us put CM baseball back on the map.”

A Rumford native, Palmer is the son of Mark and Stephanie Palmer. Mark is a 2011 inductee of the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame. 

Ryan Palmer currently lives in Rumford with his girlfriend, Andrea, and her two children. He works at the Rumford Community Center and for Gleason Radio Group.  He is a 2000 graduate of Mountain Valley High School, where he played four years of varsity basebal, where he was selected to the MVC All-Conference team three of those years. 

Following high school, Palmer attended CMCC where he played two years of baseball and made the YSCC All-Conference team in 2004.  He was a member of the 2004 team that qualified for the USCAA National Tournament in Tampa, Florida.  He was chosen as a member of the CMCC Baseball All-Decade team (2000-2010). 

Palmer brings to the team over 10 years of coaching experience at the high school level, seven years as a head coach.  He was the head baseball coach at Mt. Abram High School for four years before taking his current role as head baseball coach at Dirigo, where he has been for the past three years. Palmer has twice been named the Mountain Valley Conference Coach of the Year.