Philomath High School Athletic Director Mike Hood has filled two head coaching vacancies involving spring sports — Mark Orozco for girls tennis and Kari Jaques for softball.
Orozco, 65, succeeds Greg Thorson as the girls tennis coach. Thorson had been in the position for three years.
“I came from Kansas about five or six years ago and the pandemic hit and so I wasn’t able to go back and forth to Kansas and ended up coaching three years at Crescent Valley,” Orozco said.
What Orozco accomplished with the Class 5A Raiders is notable — CV won the state girls tennis title in 2022 and 2023. (The school won for a third straight year in 2024 with Jason Lin as head coach).
“This spot opened up and (PHS Principal) Mark Henderson called me up — he was the athletic director at Crescent Valley when I was in my first couple of years — and said they’ve got a spot if I’d be interested,” Orozco said. “So I came to interview and Mike selected me.”
Orozco started to fall in love with the sport after hanging up his baseball cleats several years ago.
“When I got too old to play 30-and-over baseball, I started playing tennis,” Orozco said. “I coached a ton of baseball and the coaching thing kind of just evolved.”
Orozco ended up as a tennis coach at Seaman High in Topeka, Kansas, a school about three times the size of Philomath.
“I’d never worked with girls before and really had a fun time, a lot of personal reward from coaching girls that kind of kept me doing that,” he said. “I coached the girls and the boys in Kansas because they had split seasons but the girls were a lot more fun … just easier to get along with and seemed to get a little more personal feedback from them.”
In all, Orozco has coached boys tennis for about five years and girls tennis for about 15 years.
This past spring, Philomath’s girls placed seventh at state with Bailey Bell placing fourth and Adele Beckstead reaching the consolation finals. Bell graduated and Beckstead is just entering her senior year.
Jaques takes over softball
Philomath’s softball program will also see new leadership this spring with Kari Jaques taking the reins. For those familiar with local youth softball, Jaques should be a familiar face.
“A lot of the kids that I’ve coached over the last few years are coming into the program so that had a lot to do with it,” Jaques said when asked why she had an interest in the position. “I have a daughter who is going into the eighth grade now, so she’s going to be coming through the program (beginning in 2025-26).”
Philomath will be her first experience as a high school varsity coach.
“I coached at Oregon State for the cheer and dance team,” she said. “I was a strength and conditioning coach and director of operations for the last eight years.”
Jaques, 37, has a strong background in softball.
“I’ve played softball since I was probably 8 all the way through college,” she said. “Softball is actually my sport.”
Jaques succeeds Travis King, who served as the softball coach from 2020-24.
Nuno on top 200 players list
Philomath High School junior CD Nuno earned preseason football accolades earlier this month with inclusion on a list published by On SI, a publication that’s part of the Sports Illustration family.
René Ferrán, who writes Oregon high school content for On SI, put together a list of 200 players to watch in 2024. Nuno made the writer’s list at No. 116.
“Nuno was a two-way 4A all-state selection for the Warriors last year, making the second team on offense after finishing second in 4A with 828 yards receiving (52 catches) with seven touchdowns. He made the honorable mention list in the secondary.”
Ferrán wrote that the list was not intended to be a rundown of the top 200 players but just a list of “200 names that come to mind when thinking about the upcoming season.”
Nuno had multiple 100-yard receiving games for the Warriors last season and will no doubt again be a force on this year’s team. The season opens Sept. 6 at Newport.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
