Baseball
Baseball
BASEBALL: Huskies Release 2010 Baseball Schedule
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Faber Field |
St. Cloud, Minn. - Head Coach Pat Dolan and the 2010 St. Cloud State University baseball squad released its 2010 schedule, which features 20 games in the Minneapolis Metrodome along with trips to two top-quality tournaments in southern Missouri and a full slate of Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference contests.
"We are very fortunate to again get 20 games in the Metrodome," said Dolan. "It really helps give us a jump start, as we know we’ll be getting games. Our schedule starts on February 6, and it will keep us busy throughout the spring and hopefully prepare us for a postseason appearance this year."
All 20 of the scheduled Metrodome games will take place in February and March, as the Huskies will start their season with a four game set against the University of Wisconsin Parkside on February 6-7. As of now, the Huskies' schedule features 50 games strictly against Division II opponents.
"This was an issue last year when we had our spring trip booked to Phoenix, and many of the Division II teams moved their trips to Florida. It was a great 9-1 trip, but our competition wasn’t the greatest," Dolan said.
After the opening weekend series, the team will have the next weekend off from playing, but will be sponsoring its 3rd Annual SCSU Coaches Clinic and Youth Baseball Pitchers-Catchers/Hitters Clinic on Saturday, February 13, 2010.
"Last year we had over 250 coaches and players attend the baseball event. It’s our way to get them excited about their upcoming baseball season and get into our Husky Dome indoor training facility," Dolan said.
The schedule gets tougher the following weekend when the Huskies travel to Warrensburg, Missouri to play in the Holiday Inn Express Classic. They will be opening play with a 9-inning game against Central Missouri State University followed the next two days with contests against former North Central Conference powerhouse, the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
CMSU and UNO played in the Mid-Atlantic Intercollegiate Conference Tournament Championship game and both participated in the NCAA-II South Regional Tournament in 2009. UNO had a 41-20 record and CMSU had a 44-15 record. CMSU has 16 appearances in the NCAA Division II World Series with top five finishes in 7 of the last 10 series - including two national titles.
"It’s obviously going to be a big test to really see where our program is going. We’ve had some success the past two years, but for our program to continue to develop, we need to play teams like this win or lose. We are going down there to win games, but we are realistic," said Dolan.
The Huskies come back the next weekend with a four game non-conference set with NSIC partner Bemidji State University at at the Metrodome.
"Coach Bellow really has done a great job with his program the past few years at Bemidji State. It’s always fun playing them because we have similar style of play and the games are always competitive," Dolan said.
Nothing gets easier the following weekend, as the Huskies again travel to play three games against quality teams from Arkansas at the Heffington Optical Invitational.
The Huskies open up with national powerhouse Ouachita Baptist, who in 2008 placed second in the nation at the DII level with a 51-16 record. In 2009, Ouachita finished with a 37-20 record.
The finale of the invitational tourney matches the Huskies against Gulf South Champions, Southern Arkansas University, who finished with an amazing 51-11 record and were ranked in the top five nationally the majority of the year. They played deep into the South Regional before bowing out to Florida Southern University. The Huskies also play Arkansas Tech University.
On the way back to Minnesota, the Huskies play a doubleheader against Washburn University (23-27 in 2009) in Topeka, Kansas.
Before the rugged NSIC action begins, SCSU will be playing two doubleheaders at the Metrodome again. Teams will be announced at a future date.
The 2010 NSIC action will begin with doubleheaders in the Metrodome the last two weekends in March against the University of Minnesota-Crookston and the University of Mary.
Four game sets with Concordia University, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Augustana College, Northern State University, Wayne State College and Minnesota State-Mankato will conclude the NSIC regular season. All conference games this year will be played with one 9-inning game followed by a 7-inning doubleheaders.
To cap the season, SCSU will serve as the host for the 2010 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament at the MAC complex in St. Cloud, which features two of the region's top baseball diamonds - Joe Faber Field and Dick Putz Field. The top six teams in the league will qualify for NSIC tournament play.
"The NSIC schedule will be a battle again this year. We are fortunate to be able to play our first eight conference games in the dome and then have Veteran’s Field Turfed field on reserve for the following two weeks to get games in close to home this year. It was a headache last year having to lose all our home games and travel seven-plus hours to get the early season games in, but you have to do everything you can to get the games in," Dolan said.
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