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Martinez became the fastest head coach to win three Mountain West titles in league history last season
Source: goaztecs.com
Photo courtesy goaztecs.com
August 14, 2018 (San Diego) - San DiegoSan Diego State head baseball coach Mark Martinez has signed a contract extension that will keep him on the Mesa through the 2023 season, SDSU athletics director John David Wicker announced on Tuesday. With the extension, Martinez has five years remaining on his current contract.
During his fourth season as head coach in 2018, Martinez became the fastest head coach in Mountain West history to win three conference championships. In 2017, Martinez logged his 100th win as head coach and became the fastest head coach in program history to reach the century mark.
“We have a commitment to winning and a commitment to winning Mountain West Championships,” Martinez said. “Hopefully, we’ll continue to grow the program into national prominence. I’m excited to be able to continue the recent consistency of winning championships and developing student-athletes that we’ve established.”
Martinez led SDSU to a 39-21 performance in 2018, leaving the Aztecs as one of 13 teams in the nation to have won 39 or more games four times in the past five years. Since the start of the 2014 season – Martinez’s final year as SDSU’s head assistant coach under the late Tony Gwynn – the Aztecs have recorded 185 wins, the most among all Division I California programs.
San Diego State will enter the 2019 season as the only team in Division I baseball with five conference tournament championships in the last six seasons. SDSU is one of 18 programs in the nation to have played in five NCAA Regionals in the last six years and one of just two programs in California, joined by only Cal State Fullerton. Statistically, the Aztecs are one of just nine teams to have hit .300 or better in each of the last two seasons and will enter 2019 having led the MW in earned run average in back-to-back seasons.
Martinez, who has been a part of 1,030 collegiate baseball wins since starting his coaching career in 1984, enters his fifth season as a head coach with a record of 143-103 (.581). Under his watch, SDSU has reached its highest academic progress rate, highest team grade point average, and highest total of scholar-athletes in its 82-year history. Last April, Martinez received the Center for Community Solutions Champions Award, recognizing his efforts in starting healthy relationships and consent education training with SDSU baseball student-athletes and coaches.
Fifteen Aztecs have been selected by the MLB First-Year Player draft and 10 Aztecs have been named Mountain West scholar athletes (3.5 GPA or better) since 2015. Martinez has also directed 21 student-athletes to all-MW honors over the last four seasons, including back-to-back MW Pitchers of the Year (Brett Seeburger – 2017, Garrett Hill – 2018) and 2017 MW Player of the Year Danny Sheehan.
Martinez became the fourth head coach in SDSU history after being named Gwynn’s successor on August 20, 2014. Martinez entered the start of his head coaching career with 31 years of coaching experience as an assistant coach, split between nine years on Gwynn’s Aztec staff (2006–2014), 17 years at New Mexico (1989–2005), and five seasons at his alma mater Mesa State (1984–1988). With Gwynn, Martinez helped SDSU end an 18-year drought from the NCAA postseason with an appearance in 2009.
Looking to make it six conference championships in the last seven years in 2019, Martinez is expected to have five starters returning to the 2019 roster, including all-conference outfielders Chad Bible and Julian Escobedo and consensus freshman all-American infielder/relief pitcher Casey Schmitt.
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