(Gilbert, AZ) Park University Gilbert Director of Athletics Angelique Claussen has announced the hiring of Josh Musselman as the new head coach for the Buccaneer softball program. Musselman has been an assistant coach at Cerritos Junior College in Norwalk, Calif., for the past four years. Musselman brings a wide range of experience at all levels of collegiate softball to the Gilbert campus.
Musselman has been at Cerritos Junior College over four seasons, but only two seasons of competitive softball due to the COVID pandemic. Cerritos posted an overall mark of 65-28 (.699) in his two seasons as an assistant including the Cerritos’ best season since 2010 with a mark of 32-12 in 2022.
Musselman also has experience in the Cal Pax having been an assistant coach at Antelope Valley for a season and helped the Pioneers to the most wins in program history up to that point. He was the programs recruiting coordinator and mentored the teams outfielders. He was instrumental in recruiting Infinity Laufou who was the 2023 Cal Pac batting average leader to Lancaster.
Prior to UAV, Musselman was the head softball coach four seasons at Sterling College in Sterling, Kan., where he helped turn around a program which had been mired in mediocrity for a number of years. In just his second season Sterling posted a record of 28-19 which put them nine games over .500, a school record. It was also a jump of 18 wins over the previous season.
His Warrior team set seven offensive records in 2016, was third in the country in RBI, fourth in team hitting and sixth in slugging percentage. In 2015, Sterling was second in the nation in stolen bases with 168.
Musselman also worked at the NCAA Division I level as an assistant coach at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Heas the teams hitting coach and recruiting coordinator. The team set the school record for most wins at the time and had seven players win All-Pacific Coast Conference honors. In addition to Utah Valley, he was a volunteer assistant at Loyola Marymount where he was the team’s hitting coach.
While most of Musselman’s experience comes at the collegiate level, for one season he was the head coach at Edison High Schol in Huntington Beach, Calif., where he helped lead the team to the No. 1 ranking in Orange County and the No. 8 ranking in the country.
His dedication to the sport was evident when he helped resurrect the program at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, Calif., where he filled a roster with only six athletes in the fall to 25 by the spring and kept the program from being eliminated. The team also earned its highest team GPA in five years.
Musselman also coached at two Division II schools for two years each at Cal State University San Bernardino and Sonoma State University. At both schools, he was the teams hitting coach and recruiting coordinator. He helped Sn Bernardino lead its conference in seven offensive categories and set six offensive school records. At Sonoma State he help lead the team to its first winning record in nine seasons.
Musselman graduated from Antioch University of Los Angeles with a BA in Liberal Studies and then earned his Master’s in Coaching and Athletic Administration in Exercise and Sport Science from Concordia University.
Press Release courtesy of Park University Athletics – Preston English
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