McALLEN — Coming off a co-district championship and a playoff run into the regional quarterfinals, the McAllen Rowe baseball program will be under new leadership next season after Mike Segovia was approved earlier this month by the McAllen ISD school board to become head coach of the Warriors.
The position opened in June after former McAllen Rowe head coach Adrian Leal accepted the same position at Sharyland Pioneer.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to McAllen ISD and Coach (Bobby) Flores and Principal (Monica) Kaufmann there at Rowe and humbled at the same time. It’s a solid program with a solid foundation and I’m just looking forward to building upon that,” Segovia said.
Segovia, a Hebronville native and Texas A&M-Kingsville alumnus, began as a freshman coach at La Joya High before becoming a varsity assistant. When La Joya Palmview opened in 2008, Segovia moved as an assistant to help build the Lobos’ baseball program, which reached the regional quarterfinals twice. Segovia then took a job as head coach at La Joya Juarez-Lincoln from 2015-18. After two years at Morris Middle School as an athletic coordinator, Segovia spent the previous two seasons as an assistant baseball coach at McAllen High School.
Rowe is coming off a 27-9 season that resulted in winning a share of the District 31-5A championship along with Sharyland Pioneer. The Warriors then advanced to the regional quarterfinals of the Class 5A playoffs with series wins over Edcouch-Elsa and Corpus Christi Carroll before falling to Corpus Christi Ray in Round 3.
“We hope to build upon the success of last year and using that experience coming back, along with new and developing talent, we hope to continue that success and create a positive atmosphere for these boys to succeed moving forward,” Segovia said. “We want to be able to represent Nikki Rowe and the community in a positive way.”
While the Warriors are losing the majority of their lineup to graduation, there are solid pieces to build around in pitchers Ramiro Campos and Javier Garcia and the bats of Nathan Charles and Branden Leon.
“The season they had last year was a historic run. It’s one of those magical seasons that unfortunately comes to an end,” he said. “Coming back, pitching will be a strength and the arms coming back. We’ll have to fill in the spots left vacant around those arms. I’m confident in the staff and the guys coming up to step in. We’ll look to play sound, disciplined, fundamental baseball.”