Big West coaches have bestowed preseason honors upon three UC San Diego baseball players, while picking the team to finish third in the conference.
The season, which begins Friday with a three-game series at home versus San Jose State, follows UCSD’s 2023 triumph, as the team finished atop the Big West.
The Tritons were one of three teams with three players on the preseason coaches’ team, including UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine.
The preseason honors for Matt Halbach and Izaak Martinez follow their All-Big West first team campaigns last season. Ryan Forcucci also had received 2023 honors with a spot on the second team.
UC Santa Barbara was picked to finish first with 99 points and nine first-place votes. UC Irvine came in second with 89 points, while the Tritons followed with 78 points.
Forcucci is among the top draft prospects in the nation, ranking No. 46 on D1 Baseball’s list of the top 200 college prospects and No. 55 in the MLB’s rankings. In 2023, the junior led the team with 68 strikeouts, 12th in the Big West.
Halbach, a third baseman, also has drawn attention from MLB scouts, ranking 124th on D1 Baseball’s top 200 list. The junior finished last season with a .306 batting average, third on the team, and 63 hits, which ranked 14th in the Big West.
Martinez, the Triton closer, collected nine saves last season, second in the Big West, while his six wins ranked seventh and his 2.84 earned run average came in at fifth. The senior led the team with 24 appearances, collecting 63 strikeouts.
Head coach Eric Newman will enter his 13th season at the helm of the Tritons, and is coming off a season in which he earned Big West Coach of the Year honors.
The Tritons soon will complete their final season of the NCAA-mandated four-year reclassification period, after their move to the Big West from the California Collegiate Athletic Association.
With the end to the reclassification period, UCSD sports will be fully eligible for Division I post-season competition in the coming academic year.
