FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The UC Santa Barbara baseball team has released its 2012 schedule and the 56-game slate features some quality opponents – including five postseason teams from a season ago – that the Gauchos will face both home and away.
UCSB features 27 home games at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium which include Oregon State, Fresno State, Pepperdine, USC and Cal State Fullerton.
UCSB will open the season at home with a four-game series against Oregon State, a postseason team in six of the last seven years, on Feb. 17 – the first day the NCAA allows baseball competition. The Gauchos, who defeated Oregon State last year in Corvallis, Ore., will be facing first-year head coach Andrew Checketts’ alma mater to open his coaching career.
“This is a good schedule that will test us right out of the gate,” said Checketts, who was an All-American pitcher for the Beavers in 1997. “Opening up at home against Oregon State, who is a top-25 caliber team, and then facing teams like Fresno State, Nevada, Loyola Marymount and St. Mary’s will definitely help prepare us for the tough competition of the Big West schedule.”
The Gauchos will play mid-week games against several solid programs like Fresno State (in Santa Barbara on Tuesday, March 13), Pepperdine (Tuesday, March 27), Cal State Bakersfield (Tuesday, March 6), USC (Tuesday, May 22) and a non-conference mid-week game against Cal Poly (Tuesday, April 10).
UCSB also hosts Loyola Marymount (Mar. 2-4) and Rhode Island (Mar. 16-18) in non-conference series and travels to San Jose State, Nevada and San Francisco for weekend series and closes out the year in a tournament in Bakersfield against the Roadrunners and Utah.
Santa Barbara opens its Big West schedule against UC Riverside at home on Mar. 30 and also hosts Cal State Northridge (Apr. 5-7), UC Davis (Apr. 27-29) and Fullerton (May 11-13).
