Gordon Cardenas was named to the USI Baseball coaching staff in 2023 and will focus primarily on recruiting and assisting on all aspects of the USI program.
Cardenas comes to USI after working the past two seasons as the pitching coach\recruiting coordinator for Lake Land College. He was instrumental in improving the program by recruiting top players and developing pitchers, enabling the Lakers to reach the 2023 Region XXIV Championship Finals. Cardenas expanded the Lakers' recruiting base outside of Illinois (six additional states including Hawaii and international) and had six pitchers commit to NCAA Division I programs.
Prior to his tenure at Lake Land, Cardenas was an assistant coach at Purdue University Fort Wayne University from 2019 to 2021. He was involved with all aspects of running a baseball program, from day-to-day preparations to game lineups and substitutions. The team had immediate improvements on ERA improvements and strikeouts during his tenure.
Cardenas has coached in some of the top summer collegiate leagues. He directed the Madison Mallards (Northwoods League) and the Danville Dans (Prospect League) pitching staffs to top three rankings strikeouts in the respective leagues and the Turf Monsters (College Summer League at Grand Park) to a league championship. The Dans also were second in the Prospect in fewest walks allowed.
Collegiately, Cardenas started his career at the University of Hawaii before transferring to Fullerton College, Auburn University, and Marshall University. He led Auburn in ERA (2.70) as a junior, not allowing an earned run in 11 of the 17 games. Cardenas completed his collegiate career as a graduate transfer at Marshall University where he led the team with 23 appearances and had an opponents batting average of .266.
A native of Manhattan Beach, California, Cardenas received a bachelor's degree from Auburn in public administration and a master's degree from Marshall in leadership studies.
