LOS ANGELES – Cal State L.A. athletics director Dan Bridges and head baseball coach Pat Shine are pleased to announce the hiring of Jason Dietrich as new Golden Eagle baseball pitching coach.

“We are delighted to have Jason on board,” said Bridges. “We look forward to having him working with our pitching staff, and continuing the success of last season.”

“Jason brings a wealth of coaching and playing experience to this program,” added Shine. “His professional playing career as well as his coaching at many different levels will have an immediate impact at Cal State L.A,”

Dietrich comes to Cal State L.A. with championship experience at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels both as a coach and a player. He spent the 2000 and 2001 seasons as Varsity pitching coach at Arcadia High School, where he helped lead the Apaches to consecutive Pacific League Championships.

In the junior college ranks, he has spent the past four seasons as pitching coach with Irvine Valley College where his team participated in the 2005 Super Regionals. Prior to his stint at Irvine Valley, Dietrich was the pitching coach for Los Angeles City College during their South Coast Conference championship year in 2002.

In addition to his junior college coaching duties, Dietrich's experience includes two seasons with the Cape Cod League's Hyannis Mets, where the team earned a post-season playoff berth in his first season, 2004. For the 2003 season, he spent the summer as pitching coach for the Western Wood Bat Collegiate Summer League's Southern California Fire.

As a player, Dietrich spent three seasons at Santa Ana Community College where he was named team captain and won All-Conference and All-California honors. In each of those seasons, Santa Ana won their conference. In 1993, Santa Ana went all the way and won the California Community College Championship. From there, Dietrich moved on to Pepperdine University where, in his lone season in 1994, he was named to the All-West Coast Conference Team.

Out of Pepperdine, Dietrich began his professional baseball career spending four seasons in the Colorado Rockies organization. Following his stint with the Rockies, Dietrich was a member of the New Jersey Jackals during their first season in the independent Northeast League in 1998. That season, the Jackals swept through the league playoffs, winning all four games en route to the Northeast League championship.

Dietrich looks forward to bringing his championship experience to Cal State L.A. as the Golden Eagles look to build on a successful 2006 campaign in which the team went 36-16-1 and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament, where they finished second in the Pacific Region.