Ryan Fuller, a 2008 Old Lyme graduate who later starred at UConn-Avery Point and UConn, was named co-hitting coach of the Baltimore Orioles on Monday night.

Fuller spent 2021 as the Orioles' Double-A hitting coach in Bowie,where he was widely acknowledged as making some of the most significant improvements in Baltimore's minor league system.

He will share the hitting coach duties with Matt Borgschulte, who was spent last season as the hitting coach with the Triple-A St. Paul Saints in the Minnesota Twins' minor league system. Both coaches are just 31.

Fuller joined the Orioles organization in 2020 when director of player development Matt Blood decided to overhaul and reinvent the organization's hitting program.

The Baltimore Sun reported that those changes, "which feature challenging pregame work and individualized attack plans for hitters at the plate, were met with positive reviews from players at every level as overall production on the farm for the Orioles spiked this year."

Fuller, who played one minor league season (2012) with the Arizona Diamondbacks before ending his playing career, developed most of those plans while running a private hitting school from 2013-2019.

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde decided not to bring back veteran hitting coach Don Long while assistant hitting coach Jose Hernandez is expected to have a different role with the club, according to The Sun.

Fuller, a third baseman, earned all-state honors at Old Lyme and also played for the Niantic American Legion team before enrolling at UConn-Avery Point, where he played two seasons (2009, 2010) for Roger Bidwell and helped lead the Pointers to a runner-up finish in the NJCAA national tournament in 2010.

He spent the final two years of his college career in Storrs, where he hit. 310 over two seasons with 10 home runs, 43 doubles and 95. Fuller was also a member of UConn's 2011 team which reached the NCAA Super Regionals at South Carolina and featured future major league players Matt Barnes, George Springer, Nick Ahmed, John Andreoli and Scott Oberg.