ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - For the 2022 season, the Laguna Creek Cardinals introduced the Roy Mariano Memorial Scholarship, which is presented to a senior each year who exemplifies effort, a positive attitude and being a selfless teammate. 

The scholarship is in memory of their junior varsity coach, Roy Mariano, who passed away on Oct. 2, 2021, due to COVID-19 complications. He is survived by his wife, Michelle, and his four children, Anthony, Marissa, Justin and Christian.

“Roy was a wonderful human being, he was always very present with the boys and his mindset was always to help everybody get better,” Matt Halseth, a junior varsity coach at the time with Mariano, said. “He was kind, caring, enthusiastic and definitely hard working.”

Halseth recognized that once he and Todd Collum, another junior varsity coach at the time, stopped coaching and Mariano’s son, Justin, was no longer a member of the team, that Roy Mariano might not be remembered unless they did something about it.

The scholarship was first brought up during the team’s board meetings, where the goal was to keep Mariano’s memory alive while keeping the focus on the athletes’ character development through what he taught his players, Laguna Creek baseball’s Booster Club president, Krissy Kolpacoff, said. 

“I think all of us in the Laguna Creek baseball community tried to come together when the Mariano family lost Roy,” Kolpacoff said. “We all felt like we lost Roy, so it was part of the coaching staff’s will to try to continue to be there for Justin, as they know Roy would be there for their own children if one of them had passed.” 

The Roy Mariano Memorial Scholarship will be awarded at the Cardinals’ end-of-season banquet. The first three recipients of the award were Matthew Tokunaga, Cameron Crowley and Justin Mariano. 

Justin Mariano unanimously won the award last season.

“Justin’s a great kid and a very good leader,” Halseth said. “He was one of our better pitchers; he had the most swag up on the mound. He was such a good teammate, so beloved by all the players. Being a main part of our team, he was a natural recipient of the award.”

Kolpacoff said that Justin embodies all the characteristics that his father wanted to pass on to those he coached. 

“Some things are bigger than baseball, bigger than stats or scoreboards,” Kolpacoff said. “I know as a parent; I want my kids to grow up to be great people contributing to the community and I strongly feel that’s what Roy was preaching when he was out there on the field. 

The current senior class at Laguna Creek is the first to not be entirely coached by Mariano, once he started as a coach in 2019-2020. The hope is for the future senior classes who didn’t know him to ask questions about him, Halseth said. 

“‘Who is Roy Mariano? What did he bring to the team? Why is this banner out there?’ That would give us an opportunity to tell a story about a really strong family man who was a volunteer, who also put a lot of time and energy into the program and treated all the players respectfully and wanted them to have the best experience possible,” Halseth said. 

Along with the banner that was unveiled last season in left field with Mariano’s name and the scholarship, the Laguna Creek Cardinals will host the Mariano Memorial Tournament the first weekend of June. 

“If anybody wants to come out and watch, we have t-shirts that have Roy’s name and his family will come out and support every year, so it’s a fun community event,” Kolpacoff said.