Texas-Rio Grand Valley Hires WVU Recruiting Coordinator As Coach

Texas-Rio Grande Valley on Saturday announced it hired Derek Matlock as its new head coach.

Matlock, a Texas native, spent the last five seasons as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at West Virginia. He helped Randy Mazey guide the Mountaineers this season to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 21 years.

In a statement, Matlock said he was excited by the opportunity.

“It’s a great baseball area and I want to build a program of which the community can be proud,” he said.

Prior to joining the staff at West Virginia, Matlock was an assistant coach at Texas State and Texas Christian. He also was a high school coach in Texas for 11 years.

UTRGV athletic director Chris King said in a statement that Matlock’s background prepared him well for the opportunity.

“When we started this search, we were looking for someone with deep ties to the state of Texas that could recruit the best and brightest in-state,” he said. “We also wanted someone with a proven pitching acumen, and we have found that in coach Matlock.”

Matlock takes over the program from Manny Mantrana, who stepped down after the season to become a special assistant to the athletic director. UTRGV went 24-28 this season and tied for last place in the Western Athletic Conference.

2017 COACHING CHANGES
School	Departures	Arrivals
Alabama	Greg Goff	Brad Bohannon
Cincinnati	Ty Neal	Scott Googins
Citadel	Fred Jordan	Tony Skole
Dayton	Tony Vittorio
East Tennessee State	Tony Skole
Incarnate Word	Danny Heep
La Salle	Mike Lake
Louisiana-Monroe	Bruce Peddie
Maryland	John Szefc
Massachusetts	Mike Stone	Matt Reynolds
North Florida	Smoke Laval	Tim Parenton
Santa Clara	Dan O’Brien
South Carolina	Chad Holbrook
Southern	Roger Cador
Stanford	Mark Marquess (retiring after season)
Tennessee	Dave Serrano	Tony Vitello
Texas-Rio Grande Valley	Manny Mantrana	Derek Matlock
Towson	Mike Gottlieb
Virginia Tech	Patrick Mason	John Szefc
Xavier	Scott Googins