Colorado Mesa University alumnus and baseball all-American Willie Hinojosa is in his fourth season as the Mavericks’ assistant softball coach.
In his previous three seasons, he has helped the Mavericks win two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season titles and advance to the RMAC Tournament Championship game in the other.
As the team’s hitting coach, he has seen the Mavericks twice hit 100 or more home runs in his time with the program. They hit a NCAA Division II record 123 in 2024 and led the country in scoring putting up 8.26 runs per game as well as in slugging percentage (.680).
They also led the country with 100 home runs in 2022.
The Mavericks won the RMAC regular season titles in both of those seasons and advanced to the RMAC Tournament title game in 2023, a year that saw the Mavericks hit 90 home runs to finish third in the national statistics.
Hinojosa had joined the Maverick program for the 2021-22 academic year with more than ten years of coaching experience on the diamond. He had spent the previous three-plus years as the assistant baseball coach at Hartnell Junior College in Salinas, California, just miles from his hometown of Watsonville.
A 2005 graduate of CMU with a degree in kinesiology, Hinojosa was a Second Team NCBWA and Third Team ABCA All-American after his senior season, in which he hit .364 with 18 home runs and 71 RBIs. He also earned First Team All-RMAC and All-West Region honors at the shortstop position as the Mavericks won the RMAC title before hosting their first regional tournament.
Coming to CMU after a 2-year (2001-02) career at Hartnell, where he won a league title and earned first team all-conference honors, Hinojosa redshirted during the 2003 season before earning RMAC Tournament MVP honors in 2004, a season that saw him hit .378 with 14 home runs and 67 RBIs in a Maverick uniform.
After his playing career, Hinojosa took his knowledge of the game to the coaching ranks and served as an assistant baseball coach at nearby Palisade High School for seven years over two stints. During that time, he helped the Bulldogs win four league titles and make four playoff appearance. He also was an assistant coach for the Palisade softball team.
Hinojosa then returned to his hometown and coached at St. Francis High School, helping lead the Sharks’ baseball team to a second place finish in the league and the section championship game in 2018. He then made the jump over to Hartnell and helped the Panthers to their best season under head coach Travis Babin in 2019.
While in California, Hinojosa also regularly gave private softball lessons to aspiring players.
He and partner Ivy Villanueva have a 4-year old daughter named Olivia.
In his spare time, Hinojosa enjoys fishing, traveling and watching collegiate sports.
