UTSA head baseball coach Sherman Corbett announced Friday the Roadrunners’ 2008 schedule. Highlighted by six opponents that qualified for the 2007 NCAA Tournament (Baylor, Louisiana-Lafayette, Oral Roberts, Sam Houston State, Texas and Texas A&M), the season-opening UTSA Baseball Classic and a full slate of Southland Conference action, the defending SLC Regular Season Champions will play a total of 56 contests next spring.
“Coach (Mike) Clement did an outstanding job of putting together the 2008 schedule with a good balance of teams,” Corbett said. “The non-conference schedule will be a good indicator on where we are as a team heading into conference play. The best thing about the schedule is the number of home contests. With the new NCAA rules not allowing us to start practice until Feb. 1 and play until Feb. 22, we were unsure how this would affect scheduling. The large number of home games should play to our advantage and, obviously, the home games with Texas and Texas A&M highlight this year’s non-conference schedule.”
UTSA’s 34-game home slate includes 12 contests at Wolff Stadium, the home of the San Diego Padres Double A affiliate San Antonio Missions. The Roadrunners’ first 10 games will be played at Wolff, which has been a fixture on the schedule for more than a decade, and 18 of the team’s first 21 contests will be played in the Alamo City.
UTSA opens the campaign with back-to-back games against 2007 NCAA Regional teams that won at least 40 games a year ago. The Roadrunners host Oral Roberts on Friday, Feb. 22, in the third game of the UTSA Baseball Classic and then play Louisiana-Lafayette the following afternoon before hosting Army in the final round-robin contest later in the day. The championship and consolation games are scheduled for Feb. 24.
After welcoming Sacred Heart for a four-game series (Feb. 29-March 2) and Kansas State for a two-game set (March 4-5), UTSA hits the road for the first time when it heads to South Carolina for a three-game series against The College of Charleston (March 7-9). The Roadrunners return home for their first contests of the year at Roadrunner Field when they host Northern Illinois in a doubleheader on March 11.
UTSA kicks off the 30-game Southland Conference slate with a three-game home series against McNeese State beginning on March 14. The Roadrunners also welcome Texas-Arlington (March 28-30), Stephen F. Austin (April 18-20), Sam Houston State (April 25-27), Nicholls State (May 9-11) and I-35 rival Texas State (May 15) to the Bird Bath for conference contests.
Following a March 17 tilt against Texas at Wolff and a doubleheader against Texas-Pan American the following afternoon at Roadrunner Field, UTSA plays its first league road series at Central Arkansas during Easter weekend (March 20-22). Other league road trips include Southeastern Louisiana (April 4-6), Northwestern State (April 11-13), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (May 2-4 in Robstown) and Texas State (May 16-17).
The Roadrunners play their final game of the year at Wolff when Texas A&M comes to town for a March 25 contest. UTSA then hosts Texas State in a non-conference tilt at Roadrunner Field the following night.
The Roadrunners begin a season-long nine-game road trip on April 2 when they make their annual trip to Waco to face Baylor. After a pair of SLC weekend series at Southeastern Louisiana and Northwestern State, UTSA concludes the road swing with a two-game non-conference set at Lamar (April 15-16).
Other non-league tilts include an April 23 game at Texas and a home-and-home series with Houston (April 30 at Houston/May 13 at Roadrunner Field).
The SLC Tournament is scheduled for May 21-24 on the campus of Sam Houston State in Huntsville. The conference’s top two divisional finishers and the next four teams with the best winning percentage in SLC regular-season play will qualify for the four-day tournament to decide who earns the league’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
