Weber State softball pitching coach Kevin Jensen has retired, the school announced Friday.

Jensen’s five-year tenure in the job quickly placed him as a seemingly universally liked figure in the program and on campus while the Wildcats became the Big Sky Conference’s winning standard.

Known to some as the “pitching whisperer,” Jensen helped mentor two pitchers in two of the best pitching seasons in Big Sky history: Mariah Ramirez, who won 2021 Big Sky pitcher of the year, and Arissa Henderson, who won 2022 Big Sky newcomer of the year and tournament MVP.

“It has been a real privilege to spend the last five years coaching with our pitching coach, Kevin Jensen,” head coach Mary Kay Amicone said in a news release. “His fun personality has been contagious and competitive throughout his career. Kevin is the epitome of a loving, loyal, and kind person on and off the field. We truly appreciate his sacrifices and hard work to always bring out the best in all of us.”

Jensen played baseball and football at Weber State, then finished his collegiate baseball career at the University of Utah and Southern Utah. The Cincinnati Reds drafted Jensen in the 20th round of the 1976 draft and he played two seasons of rookie and single-A baseball for the organization as a first baseman, catcher and third baseman, according to Sports Reference.

Prior to joining the Weber State softball staff, Jensen spent time as an assistant baseball coach at SUU and at Northridge High School, as head softball coach at Layton High School and for club teams, and as a softball assistant at BYU.

LINING UP BASKETBALL GAMES

Weber State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams continue to line up games for the 2023-24 season as the summer wears on.

The WSU men’s program has finalized road games with Nevada and Saint Mary’s as one-off guarantee games. Contracts obtained via public records request show Weber State will travel to Saint Mary’s on Sunday, Nov. 12 — likely the second game of the season — for a payment of $75,000.

The Wildcats will travel to former Big Sky foe Nevada on Wednesday, Dec. 13, for $70,000.

Those join an already slated road game at Oral Roberts (on Jan. 6) as part of the Big Sky-Summit Challenge. A handful more road games in the Intermountain West may come to fruition.

WSU has home games set against Cal Poly on Dec. 9 and South Dakota State (part of the challenge) on Jan. 3.

As previously reported, WSU will also travel to New Brunswick, Canada, for the Atlantic Slam to play recently successful mid-majors in Yale, Gardner-Webb and Colgate.

For the women’s team, WSU has added a road game at Boise State on Monday, Nov. 13, for a guarantee of $18,000. As part of already existing contracts, WSU will return road games to Utah and Utah Tech in the coming season and is expected to play most of the rest of the in-state schools.

The WSU women are also scheduled to travel to Western Illinois (if WIU is still participating in the Big-Sky Summit Challenge after leaving the Summit League) on Jan. 3 and host Missouri-Kansas City on Jan. 6.

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