Sports short: Oregon, baseball coach agree to 5-year contract extension

Published 2:38 pm Wednesday, July 7, 2021

EUGENE — Mark Wasikowski is staying at Oregon.

The Ducks baseball coach, who led UO to a second-place finish in the Pac-12 and NCAA Regional this season, has agreed to terms on a five-year contract extension, a source confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Wasikowski, who just began the third year of an existing five-year deal through June 2024, earned $337,500 this year and $45,000 in bonuses, though performance bonuses were foregone department-wide in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. He was due $350,000 in 2021-22, $362,500 in 2022-23 and $375,000 in 2023-24.

Terms of the contract extension, which was first reported by D1Baseball, were not immediately available.

Oregon is 47-23 in two seasons under Wasikowski’s leadership, including 39-16 this year, when the Ducks hosted an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2013. The Ducks ranked in the top four of the Pac-12 in numerous statistics, including second in on-base percentage and fielding percentage and third in batting average. Five players (Robert Ahlstrom, Gabe Matthews, Kolby Somers, Kenyon Yovan and Aaron Zavala) were named all-Pac-12, and Zavala was a consensus All-American and the conference Player of the Year.

Oregon has been working on new deals for Wasikowski and softball coach Melyssa Lombardi for several weeks after both of their teams made it to the NCAA Regionals this season.

“We’ve had a lot of coaches have success; we’ve had an amazing year,” UO athletic director Rob Mullens told The Oregonian/OregonLive recently. “We want to retain those successful coaches, Missy, Waz, obviously we’re at the end of the year and it’s that time to be looking at that. We’ll consider the success. We’ll do it in a responsible way and do everything that we can to retain our high achievers.”

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