‘Tiger’ earns his stripes

EDINBURG – Out in the field, one infielder is rewriting program records.

Aside from baseball, Armani “Tiger” Raygoza enjoys his time at cookouts, quality time with his family and shopping anytime he is on the road.

“Whenever I leave the field, like I leave baseball here and just go hang out with my family and do other stuff, just relax,” Raygoza said.

Growing up in El Paso, Raygoza attended Americas High School and later joined the Vaqueros in 2023.

Despite being away from home, he says he did not experience any culture changes in the valley.

“It’s definitely a lot like, like back home. People are very welcoming here,” Raygoza said. “And, I mean, the Mexican food is outstanding here.”

At the age of three Raygoza’s parents tried to figure out his talent. He said his parents found baseball to be something he enjoyed.

“According to my parents, when I was two years old, that’s the only sport I liked,” Raygoza said. “They tried to put me in other sports, and definitely it didn’t work out.”

Raygoza is now the all-time leading home-run hitter at UTRGV with 33. The title was previously held by former teammate Brandon Pimentel with 31 homers from 2022-2023.

Raygoza’s resilience in the field has become an everyday practice for him, which led him to where he is today.

“Me, Steen and Rob have our set routine going with pre practice,” Raygoza said. “It’s a series of soft tosses and stuff like that and that’s something that never changes every day I hit it’s the exact same routine.”

Although he earned the southland conference hitter of the week for the week of March 23, Raygoza says the honor is a team effort.

“All the individual stuff. I don’t forget the people that are there for me and I don’t really see it as just a me thing,” he said. “There’s guys that cheer me up every single day and the coaches, I mean, I couldn’t do it without them.”

Baseball head coach Derek Matlock said Raygoza is an outstanding player who’s relentless and refuses to give up.

“I believe I redshirted his first year in here because we were really good at first base but boy, all he did during his whole year redshirt is work, work, work, work and then of course now we got hopefully one of the best players in the conference again,” Matlock said. “He just he plays the game with passion and with fun. If he struggles, he doesn’t really care as long as the team does well. He’s team guy. That’s a great quality.”

Raygoza and the Vaqueros are back in action Thursday for Selena Night.

The game also marks the start of baseball’s next three game series against the Northwestern State Demons, running until Saturday.