Lori Perez completed her 12th season as Sacramento State’s head coach in 2025, and 21st on the Hornets’ coaching staff.
Perez has 25 years of experience at Sacramento State, including four seasons as a player (1999-02), nine years as an assistant coach (2005-13), and 12 seasons as the head coach (2014-pres.).
During Perez’s 12-year tenure as head coach, the Hornets have combined for a 305-268-2 overall record and a 122-71 mark in the Big Sky Conference. That includes a pair of Big Sky championships in 2018 and 2023.
In fact, the Hornets have finished third place or better in the league standings in 10 of her 11 completed seasons at the helm (2020 was not finished because of the pandemic). That includes a second place finish in both 2024 and 2025. Most recently, the 2025 squad finished 27-23 overall, 10-5 in conference, and set nine single-season program offensive records.
Sacramento State has posted at least 27 wins in four consecutive seasons, and six of the last seven. The 2023 squad finished 27-20 overall, 10-5 in the Big Sky, and claimed a share of the Big Sky regular season title.
Perez’s vision for the program became reality in 2018 when the Hornets won both the Big Sky Conference’s regular season and tournament championships while qualifying for the NCAA Tournament. Sacramento State, which finished the season 31-20 overall and 14-7 in league, won its first Big Sky title since the league began sponsoring softball in 2013. In addition, the NCAA Tournament appearance was the program’s first since 2008, and the fourth since Sacramento State joined the Div. I ranks in 1990 (1993, 1995, 2008, 2018).
The 2018 season also marked the Hornets’ first league title since the program won the Pacific Coast Softball Conference title in 2008. For her efforts, Perez was named the Big Sky’s Coach of the Year.
Since Perez became head coach, the team has racked up 86 all-conference selections. Among those were four right-handers who received Big Sky Pitcher of the Year accolades - Marissa Bertuccio in 2022 and 2023, Savanna Corr in 2019, Celina Matthias in 2016 and 2018, Caitlin Brooks in 2014 and 2015.
This past season (2025), the team placed 10 players on the all-conference team, most for the program since 2014.
Academically, the softball team currently has a 3.28 team grade point average. In addition, of the 54 players that have expired their eligibility during Perez’s tenure as head coach, all 54 have graduated.
During her time as an assistant coach, Perez was influential in numerous areas of the program, including recruiting, serving as the team’s pitching coach and first-base coach, working with the catchers and infielders, as well as many other duties.
In her 21 seasons on the coaching staff, Sacramento State has combined for a 242-136 conference record, good for a .640 winning percentage.
Perez oversaw the pitchers from 2005-2024, and during that time, Hornet hurlers accounted for 25 all-conference selections. At least one pitcher earned some form of all-league recognition in 19 of those 20 seasons, and the staff led the Big Sky in ERA in 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2023 and 2024, while finishing second three straight years from 2015-17, and 2021-22.
A Sacramento State player has been named all-Pacific Region eight of the last 11 completed years. That includes a program-record three in 2022 - Lewa Day (2nd team), Marissa Bertuccio (3rd team) and Lexie Webb (3rd team). In fact, Bertuccio received all-region accolades three straight seasons (2022-24), becoming just the second Hornet to accomplish the feat during the program’s Div. I era.
Prior to her coaching stint at Sacramento State, Perez was the lead instructor at Kelly Jackson’s All-American Softball School in West Sacramento, Calif., from 2003-04. She also spent time as the head varsity coach at Center High School (Antelope, Calif.) for two years (2003-04).
During her playing days, she was a four-year starter for the Hornets and remains the program leader in career fielding assists (495). The Petaluma, Calif., native appeared in 196 games (including 190 starts) at second base, shortstop and third base during her four-year tenure as a student-athlete at Sacramento State.
A team captain during both her junior and senior seasons, she earned all-Big West Conference honors in 2001 and started all but one game during her final two years with the program.
Perez, who resides in Sacramento, graduated from Sacramento State in the fall of 2002 with a degree in communication studies, and completed her master’s degree in recreation administration in the fall of 2011. Perez has two children, Caroline and Jimmy.
