Former player looks to lead baseball team, this time as a coach

Former Monarch shortstop returns to Valley College as an infield coach and will help develop the new squad.  

By Joseph Gonzalez, Staff Writer

The Valley College baseball team welcomes its newest coach, Isaac Dominguez who hopes to put the passion and love he has for the game into teaching young players.

Since 4, Coach Dominguez has been enamored with baseball. Twenty years later, those strong emotions remain with him and keep him wanting to surround himself with the game. After his collegiate career at Cal State Los Angeles, he was looking for a way to keep baseball in his life and found it here at Valley by joining his former coach Dave Mallas’ coaching staff. Dominguez is the new infield coach.

“I knew I wanted to become a coach when I realized how baseball has shaped the person I am today,” Dominguez said. “After realizing the lifelong lessons baseball taught me, I knew I wanted to pass that forward in order to lead young players down a positive path.”

Baseball has always been in Dominguez’s blood as he comes from a family of Yankees fans and baseball fanatics. He came to Valley 2012 and later became the starting short stop, where he compiled a .950 fielding percentage, and, one year, was second on the team with 39 hits. Dominguez said the family environment is what he loved about playing for the Monarchs. This feeling stuck with him throughout the years after Valley and made him always want to come back to join Mallas.

“I wanted to coach at LAVC because it is my alma mater, but most importantly because of Coach Mallas,” Dominguez said. “Coach Mallas values life and baseball greatly. He always teaches his players how to be respectful. With that being said, he is a great resource to learn from for my future in becoming a head coach.”

Dominguez spent his career at short stop. On the field, he was known for being smooth with the glove and giving off great energy with his short motivational speeches to teammates. His coaching style and playing style tend to be similar.

“Issac, in his two years here, was one of our leaders,” Mallas said. “He spoke well to the team, and I knew coaching will be something in his future through the way he communicated with teammates. So it’s good to see that through his coaching.”

Energy is something important to find from both players and coaches on a baseball team. Dominguez finds that easy to do as he is known to bring that to the field for each game and the practice the team has.

“Every practice he is always ready to get after it.” sophomore Catcher Alec Keeling said. “His knowledge is apparent with the all drills he has the players practice to improve their fundamentals. His energy creates an environment where players want to give it their all while helping them focus on goals.”

With the Fall season almost complete, the Valley team is looking forward to spring. This is where the hard work from practices, weight rooms and visualization pays off in the transition to the field.

“I look forward to gaining experience as a first time coach,“ said Dominguez. “But mainly look forward to our players developing. Our main goal is be state champs, but if our players are able to become better players on and off the field then that’s where we have done our job as coaches.”