FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
LONG BEACH, Calif. – The Long Beach State Dirtbags unveiled their 2014 schedule today and will face 10 postseason teams during the course of the 2014 season. Nine of those 10 postseason teams will come into the Beach to take on the Dirtbags at Blair Field, including five home games against College World Series participants.
Indiana and UCLA will both make the trip to the Beach this spring after participating in the CWS in 2013. Vanderbilt and Cal State Fullerton will both play three-game sets at the Beach fresh off of their respective appearances in the Super Regionals last year. The Beach will also travel to Cal State Fullerton for three games. The Dirtbags will host both Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara for three-game Big West series and welcome Arizona State, San Diego and San Diego State for a game each at the Beach.
The Dirtbags will face two NCAA Regionals participants on the road with a three-game series at Wichita St. and a midweek game at San Diego. With 10 postseason teams on the schedule, the Dirtbags will play over half of their schedule (29 games) against teams that played in the postseason last year. The Dirtbags will host 20 of those games at Blair Field.
The season opens at home this year for the Dirtbags with a three-game set against Vanderbilt on Feb. 14-16. The Commodores, who advanced into the Super Regionals last year, will be returning the season-opening trip that the Dirtbags took to open 2013. The Dirtbags next home game will be Feb. 21 against another NCAA Tournament opponent – Arizona State.
The Dirtbags will also face Wright State and USC at home in February before embarking on their longest road trip of the year. The perennial three-game series with Wichita State will shift to Wichita, Kan. this year from Feb. 28-Mar. 2. The road trip will continue on the Tucson, Ariz. for two games with Arizona on Mar. 4-5. Utah Valley comes in to Blair Field the next weekend before College World Series participant Indiana makes the trip out to the Beach. The Dirtbags and Indiana will face off three times from Mar. 14-16. Midweek matchups at Loyola Marymount and UCLA sandwich a nonconference set at rival Cal State Fullerton.
The Dirtbags and UCLA will play again in a split three-game set from April 4-6. The Friday and Sunday games of that series with the defending national champions will be played at Blair Field.
Conference play begins at Cal State Northridge for the Dirtbags on Mar. 28-30 and picks back up on Apr. 11-13 at UC Davis. The Dirtbags first Big West home series will bring in NCAA Regional participant UC Santa Barbara Apr. 17-19 and continue with Cal Poly the very next week. Cal State Fullerton makes its trip to Blair Field May 2-4 for a three-game set.
The Dirtbags will then travel to Hawaii May 9-11 and to UC Riverside May 16-18. The regular season wraps up with the Black And Blue Rivalry against UC Irvine on May 22-24.
Midweek matchups will feature a home and away contests with Pepperdine, San Diego, USC and Loyola Marymount. The Dirtbags will also welcome in San Diego St. for a single midweek game on May 6.
The Dirtbags are in the middle of their fall season currently, which will conclude with the Dirt vs. Bags series in mid-November and a game with USC on Nov. 23.
2014 Long Beach State Schedule
