Chris Malec '01 - Varsity Head Coach / Program Director

Santa Margarita alumnus Chris Malec '01 is in his ninth season as the head coach of Santa Margarita Catholic High School Baseball. Malec was appointed head coach in December 2017. He has a career record of 149-91-1 with the Eagles, who have made the CIF playoffs in four of his five full seasons. In 2025, Santa Margarita advanced to the CIF state Regional Playoff for the third year in a row. In 2024, Malec guided Santa Margarita to Trinity League series wins against all five opponents and the Eagles advanced to the quarterfinals in both the CIF-Southern Section Division I playoffs and the State regional playoffs in Division I.

In 2023, Malec guided Santa Margarita to a Trinity League championship, finishing the league
season with a sterling 14-1 record. The Eagles went on to play for a CIF Southern Section
Division I championship and later advanced to the CIF State Division I Southern California
Regional, sweeping their three games to win the title. For his efforts, Malec was chosen by the
Orange County Register/Southern California News Group as Orange County’s Baseball Coach of
the Year.

Accolades are nothing new to Malec. In 2019, his second season at the helm, the Eagles went
26-11 and won the CIF Southern Section Division 2 championship. Malec was chosen Division 2
Coach of the Year and a “Coach of Character” by the Orange County Athletic Director’s Assn.
Malec and his staff have also earned a reputation of producing high-caliber college players. The
2023 senior class alone sent 11 players to the college ranks – 10 of them at the Division I level.
Before coming to Santa Margarita, Malec was Associate Head Coach / Associate Faculty at
Saddleback College from 2012-15. He primarily worked as the infield coach and hitting coach in
addition to running the Gauchos’ offense. While at Saddleback, 41 of Malec’s players moved on
to play at four-year universities. The three starting shortstops he coached all matriculated to
four-year schools and, eventually, professional baseball -- Josh Fuentes with the Colorado
Rockies, Colby Schultz with the Kansas City Royals and Luke Jarvis with the Miami Marlins. The
Gauchos made the playoffs in three of Malec’s four seasons, advancing to Super Regionals
twice.

Founder of the Saddleback Cowboys
In 2014, while coaching at Saddleback College, Malec founded the Saddleback Cowboys
Baseball Club, a developmental youth (ages 11-17) baseball program. The Cowboys have grown
into a nationally recognized organization, both for their tournament success and ability to assist
players in moving to the next level. More than 75 former Cowboys have gone on to play at fouryear
universities and the program has placed in the top four at the USA National Team
Championships numerous times at different age-group levels.

Early Years
As a player at Santa Margarita, Malec earned All-Serra League honors three consecutive
seasons and was selected to the All-Orange County team. He then attended UC Santa Barbara,
where he became a Freshman All-American. By the time Malec finished his college career, he
was a three-time All-Big West Conference selection. He had also been chosen by Baseball
America as a Summer All-American for his performance with the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in
the prestigious Cape Cod League, where he was an All Star.

During his senior season at Santa Barbara, Malec gained national media attention when he was
diagnosed with cancer. After missing four weeks while undergoing surgery and chemotherapy
treatments, Malec returned to action against Long Beach State and hit a grand slam in the first
at-bat of his first start. He continued treatments through the season while continuing to play.
The cancer has been in remission since the summer of 2005.

Malec began his professional career in 2005, after being drafted in the 16th round of the Major
League Baseball draft by the New York Yankees. During his minor-league career, his teams won
three league championships. He was a 2008 Eastern League (Double-A) All Star and he reached
as high as the Triple-A level, one step from the major leagues. Malec had more career walks than strikeouts when he retired from professional baseball after the 2010 season, one reason he was once recognized by Baseball America as the minor leaguer with “The Best Plate Discipline.”

Malec resides in Rancho Santa Margarita with his wife Caitlin, a teacher at Santa Margarita Catholic High School, and their children, Tomás (11), Colin (9) and Emilia (5).
 
Malec in the Media:

• Malec’s Dreams Become a Reality - ESPN
• Malec’s Return Inspires Gauchos - ESPN 
• Jim Rome Show - Featured Guest, June 2005
• Beating Cancer Bonds Two Ballplayers - New York Times 
• UCSB Celebrates Chris Malec Day

Malec’s Return Sparks UCSB - Santa Barbara News Press
 

ryan dambach - program hitting coach

Coach Dambach, a longtime hitting and mental skills coach, is in his second season with the Eagles baseball staff. He recently founded the Friars Baseball Club, based in South Orange County.
Coach Dambach played at El Toro High and Vanguard University, from 1997-2000. He earned a
Bachelor in Sciences degree in Exercise/Sport Science from Vanguard. After, he competed in
Independent League professional baseball.

Coach Dambach also has been a performance and mental skills coach at Pacific University in
Oregon and was a Mental Conditioning and Hitting Instructor for the Garciaparra Baseball
Group.

A resident of Rancho Mission Viejo, Coach Dambach and wife Valerie (a former Vanguard
softball player) celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in October 2025. They are the parents of
two boys: Mayson (14) and Jackson (10).

Ryan McGuire - Varsity Assistant Coach

Coach McGuire is in his third year as an Eagles’s varsity assistant after a career in which he starred at El Camino Real High in Woodland Hills, Calif., then UCLA, and played parts of six seasons in the Major Leagues.

McGuire was a third-round draft choice by the Boston Red Sox out of UCLA in 1993 after three stellar seasons with the Bruins. He was a career .339 hitter for UCLA, with 47 home runs and 182 runs batted in. At the time, his career home-run total was second in school history.

McGuire’s best season with the Bruins was his junior campaign in 1993, when he batted .376 with 26 home runs, 91 RBIs, 71 runs scored and 14 stolen bases. His home runs led the nation and he was second in the nation in RBIs. He also pitched for the Bruins, producing a 3-0 win-loss record with two saves and a 1.73 earned-run average. That earned him Co-Player of the Year in the Pacific-10 Conference and he was a first-team All-American.

McGuire played for Team USA before signing with the Red Sox. He was traded by Boston to the Montreal Expos before the 1996 MLB season and made his big-league debut a year later.

McGuire, a first baseman/outfielder in the majors, was with the Expos for parts of three seasons. He also played one season each with the New York Mets, Florida Marlins and Baltimore Orioles.

He was inducted into UCLA’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003.

McGuire and wife Kristy have been married for 28 years and have three children – Connor (25), Cade (23) and Maggie (21), who is a former standout swimmer for SMCHS now competing at  Auburn.

Nate Bacosa - Varsity Assistant Coach / Bullpen

Coach Bacosa is in his fourth year with SMCHS baseball, having launched his coaching career while he was still playing high school and college ball.

Bacosa grew up in San Jose and contributed on Bellarmine College Prep teams that won the NorCal version of the Boras Classic in 2017 and followed that up by defeating JSerra to win the Boras Classic played in Southern California the following year. As a senior, he earned the Father Shinney Award, presented to the player who best exemplifies a Bellarmine man to his teammates.

Bacosa next played at Whittier College, where he made the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference All-Academic team from 2020-22 and was team captain for the Poets in 2022.

The son of a longtime high school varsity pitching coach, Bacosa served as a junior varsity assistant at Willow Glen High in San Jose and helped the school’s varsity in its CIF Central Coast Section playoff run in 2021, when Whittier’s season was placed on hold by COVID. He also has six years of experience coaching youth travel teams. His brother, Kyler, is entering his senior year as a pitcher for the San Jose State baseball team. 

Additionally, Bacosa is in his second year of full-time teaching in the ASP department at Santa Margarita.

Tony Gray - Junior Varsity Blue Head Coach

Coach Gray is in his third year with Eagles Baseball, his second as head coach of the JV Blue. He
was SM’s freshman coach in 2024 and guided its JV Gold squad in 2023.

Gray has been involved with baseball his entire life as a player, coach, volunteer and executive.
He was an all-state second baseman in high school and helped lead McNary High in Keizer,
Oregon, to a second state championship in four years. He played in college at the NAIA level for
Western Oregon and later club ball at Oregon as a middle infielder.

Professionally, Gray has spent the last 20-plus years in sports – most of it at Nike World
Headquarters in finance and product development, including making shoes for MLB and college
players.

Outside the office, Gray has been a coach and administrator for baseball programs in Orange
County the past 14 years. He has coached players 4-18 years of age to several championships
and also formed South Orange County’s first all-girls Little League Baseball team (which had just
one loss in three years). He doubled the size of Aliso Viejo Little League’s Challenger Program
during his time as league President.

Gray also spent four years as Little League District 55 Administrator, directing the operations of
seven leagues.

Gray and his wife have been married 22 years and have two children: a son, 19 and a daughter, 13.

matt Wainschel - jv/freshman pitching coach

Coach Wainshel, a former Eagles baseball player who graduated from SMCHS in 2017, is in his
third year as a member of his alma mater’s baseball coaching staff.

Wainshel has nearly four years of coaching experience as an assistant with the Whitecaps
Baseball Academy, and he spent one season (2022) as the head freshman coach at Capistrano
Valley High.

A scholar-athlete at SMCHS, Wainshel matriculated to Gonzaga University, from where he
graduated Cum Laude with a degree in History in 2021. He received his teaching credential in
2023 from Concordia University in Irvine and is in his first year of full-time teaming at Santa
Margarita Catholic High School.

While at Gonzaga, Wainshel served as an intern for the Athletic Director at Lewis and Clark High in Spokane, Washington. He was a student teacher in Social Sciences at Marco Forster Middle School in San Juan Capistrano in 2023.

Mike Lutterloh - Program Chaplain

Mike Lutterloh is entering his fifth season with Eagles Baseball, his first as a team chaplain.
The previous two seasons, he had been an assistant coach at the junior varsity level, and in 2021 he was an assistant for the freshman program, which had two teams. Before that, he was a varsity
assistant for the Eagles’ softball program for eight seasons.
 
Lutterloh was also head coach of Firecrackers-Lutterloh, a travel softball team that earned national rankings as high as 6th in Triple Crown, ASA, and PGF.  All of Lutterloh’s former travel players went on to play in college at some of the most prestigious athletic and academic universities in the country, including Harvard, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Cal and Oregon.
 
Lutterloh played baseball at El Toro High and earned second-team All-South Coast League as a senior.  He played college baseball at Cal State Los Angeles for legendary Coach John Herbold and was nominated to try out for the U.S. Olympic team his freshman year.

Lutterloh played in the New York Collegiate Baseball League in Up-State New York for two summer seasons and was invited to play in the Houston Astros minor league system.
 
Lutterloh and his wife, Kindra, have been married for 28 years and are longtime residents of Rancho Santa Margarita. They have been part of the Eagle family for eight years. All four of their children have graduated from or are currently attending SMCHS: Makenna (2017) played softball for and graduated from Duke; Abby (2020) is a senior volleyball player at Georgetown; PJ is a junior at Texas and Jake, a former Eagles utility player, is a freshman at Texas working in operations for the Longhorns baseball program. 

Coming soon.