After East girls tennis success, Martinez returns to girls soccer, but at Wasco

Marty Martinez, who for the last two seasons at East High was the varsity girls tennis head coach and led the Blades to back-to-back CIF Central Section Division III finals appearances and won the title in 2025, has been hired as the new Wasco High girls soccer coach.

Martinez’s hiring was approved during a Wasco Union High School District Board of Trustees meeting Thursday night.

“It’s a perfect fit,” Martinez said. “I love the small community, the facilities are great, and there’s a great support system.”

Martinez, who was The Bakersfield Californian All-Area co-girls tennis coach of the year in both 2024 and 2025, directed the East High girls tennis team to a 30-1 overall record in 2024 and 22-3 in 2025. Both years, the team won the South Yosemite Mountain League title and in both section title matches, the Blades faced Lompoc. The Braves handed East its lone loss, 7-2, in the 2024 final. East beat Lompoc, 7-2 in 2025.

While tennis has been his focus the last few years — Martinez was named Bakersfield Californian All-Area Girls Tennis Coach of the Year in both 2024 and 2025 and just recently was named the NFHS California Coach of the Year — Martinez’s high school soccer resume is quite deep locally.

Martinez, who said at the conclusion of the girls tennis season that he wasn’t planning to be back at East, was looking at coaching opportunities in girls soccer.

He coached East’s girls soccer program for nine seasons (2012-13 to 2021-22), going 178-47-23 overall and 66-20-4 in league play. The Blades were CIF finalists twice in Division 3 and once in Division 4. He was the All-Area girls soccer coach of the year in 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Before that, Martinez coached East’s boys soccer team. In six seasons, the Blades went 64-73-20 overall and 36-37-5 in league, with a CIF Central Section Division 2 title victory in the 2006-07 season and the next season, 2007-08, East was a D2 finalist. Again, he was the All-Area boys soccer coach in the 2006-07 season.

Before coming to East, Martinez was the boys varsity soccer coach at Ridgeview from 1996-2006 and he started his coaching career at age 21 as North JV boys soccer coach for six seasons.

But the bulk of his high school coaching career came at East.

“I’ll always be grateful to East High and cherish every coaching moment,” Martinez said. “I’d like to thank the late, great Ted Armijo, who recruited me here. We had more success than I could have ever imagined, but the lasting relationships are the most important thing to me.

"It’s not like I’m leaving East, I’m just coaching somewhere else. But after 19 years of coaching at East, it ran its course. It’s time for a new challenge. I like new challenges.”

The Tigers went 10-12-1 overall and 5-5-1 in the South Sequoia League this past season. Wasco made the postseason, losing 2-1, ironically, to East in a first-round CIF playoff game.