Cienega High School grad Nick Gonzales has returned to New Mexico State for his junior season of baseball. Good for him. Gonzales didn’t big-time NMSU when he had a chance to do so. After NMSU’s baseball coach left school to become the head coach at Washington State, Gonzales could’ve transferred and filed a hardship attempt to become eligible immediately at a Pac-12 or Big 12 school or somewhere that isn’t as remote as a WAC school in Las Cruces.
Instead, the first-team All-America second baseman who hit .432 for the Aggies and followed it up by being named the Summer Collegiate League Player of the Year by Perfect Game Baseball after leading the Cotuit Kettleers to the Cape Cod League championship, is back in school at NMSU. Early mock drafts for the 2020 MLB draft suggest Gonzales will be a first-round selection. It also helped that NMSU announced it is building a $900,000, 4,500-square foot baseball facility that should be complete by January.
