The UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros baseball team, or the UTRGV Vaqueros, is the varsity intercollegiate baseball team of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, an NCAA Division I institution with several campuses in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, United States.
The Vaqueros compete in the Southland Conference since 2025 and play home games at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg.
Prior to the merger, UTPA competed in Division I as the Texas–Pan American Broncs,[2] while UTB, a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, had no baseball program.
[3] The Broncs began play in 1955, with Jim Brooks (who had been athletic director since 1952) serving as head coach for the inaugural season.
In the District 8 playoffs, they beat the University of Dallas in three games to advance to the Texas Championships against Sam Houston.
They swept Austin College and Texas Southern in two games each to advance to the Championships again.
The program began shifting to NCAA Division I along with the rest of the sports teams starting in 1965.
[4] Ogletree was named College Coach of the Year by both The Sporting News and the South Plains Professional Scouts Association.
The Broncs would play in the stadium from 1974 to 2000, with it being dismantled three years later to make way for an educational building.
In the Central Regional, they lost to Texas in the Semifinals, who went on to win the College World Series that year.
They beat San Diego State 10–6 to survive a bit longer, but a loss to Texas 9–5 eliminated them from the Regional.
Gawlik, a former Bronc player from the 1971 CWS team, had served as coach at Texas Wesleyan (1996–2001) and Central Arkansas (2002) prior to the hiring.
In the 2010 Great West Conference baseball tournament, the Broncs lost to Northern Colorado 10–0 while beating their other two opponents (NYIT and NJIT), but the loss served as the tiebreaker, eliminating them from a bid in the Finals, which were held in the home stadium of the Broncs.
In the 2012 Great West Conference baseball tournament, they beat Chicago State 10–4 to get to the Second Round, but they were beaten by North Dakota 18–7 to fall to the Loser Bracket.
In the 2013 Great West Conference baseball tournament, they beat NYIT 7–6, but they lost 3–1 to Houston Baptist (the eventual champion), with a subsequent loss in the Loser Bracket to Chicago State knocking them out of the tournament.
On May 24, 2017, Mantrana stepped down as coach, while staying at UTRGV to serve as the Special Assistant to the athletic director.
[12] In June 2017, UTRGV announced the hiring of Derek Matlock as the new head coach of the team.
[13] On May 18, 2019, the Vaqueros clinched a share of the WAC regular season title, finishing 1st along with California Baptist and New Mexico State.
The Vaqueros (then known as the Pan American Broncs) have made the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship thirteen times, with one appearance in the College World Series.