Asked about a 2013 newspaper article that quoted him as saying he expected to win championships and raise the bar at Brea Olinda High School and whether that mindset applied to his new tenure at Golden Valley, Matt Sorensen didn’t flinch.
“That’s the one approach,” he told The Signal Wednesday, after Golden Valley announced him as its new baseball coach. “That’s the only approach.”
Sorensen went on to say he loves coaching baseball because of the lessons it can teach young men that they can’t learn in a classroom or at home.
Those are lessons he learned as a pitcher for Cal State Fullerton in 1999 and 2000 and ones he has strived to teach since he began a high school coaching career several years later.
According to MaxPreps, Sorensen took over Estancia High in Costa Mesa in 2008. He led what had been a struggling program to double-digit win season in 2010 and 2011.
He then coached Brea Olinda in 2012 and 2013, winning 16 games each season. The campaigns were just the program’s second and third winning seasons in the previous nine.
He coached at Cathedral City High in 2014 and 2015, going 14-29 overall.
Wednesday, he was announced as head coach of another program in need of a turnaround.
He replaces Steve Lombardi, whose squad showed improvement in 2017, but ultimately finished 8-17.
Lombardi stepped down, in part, because of “the constant ridicule of parents and lack of support from others,” he said.
As a college pitcher, Sorensen went 17-0 on the mound in his two seasons at Fullerton. He was drafted twice by the Toronto Blue Jays.
“We are very excited to bring someone in to take over our program with such a high caliber of playing and coaching experience,” Golden Valley Principal Sal Frias said in a statement. “The future of GV baseball continues to look bright.”
“I’m very excited,” Sorensen said. “That’s the word that keeps coming up.”
