SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The defending WAC Champion Sacramento State baseball team has unveiled its 2015 schedule as announced by head coach Reggie Christiansen. The 56-game schedule includes 27 home games with three of the home contests to be played at Raley Field.
The Hornets will face two other teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament last season. The squad will return to San Luis Obispo, the site of Sacramento State’s first Div. I NCAA Regional appearance last season, for a weekend series against Cal Poly March 13-15. Sacramento State’s first road trip of the year will be a four game series at Texas Tech, which advanced to the College World Series in 2014 and finished the season ranked No. 8 in the country.
“The highlight this year will once again be our trip to the state of Texas as we take on Texas Tech,” Christiansen said. “I believe us winning on the road at Texas and at Texas A&M over the past two years was instrumental in our run last year. Those environments prepared our players for the NCAA regional in San Luis Obispo. I believe we are building something special here and our players want the challenge to play a Top-25 schedule.”
Other road game highlights include individual games at Iowa and Notre Dame. The squad will make a two-week trip out east in late April with WAC series’ at North Dakota and Chicago State bookending the Iowa and Notre Dame games.
For the second consecutive season the Hornets will open the year with a four game homestand against Utah, a series the teams split in 2014. The Hornets also have non-conference home series against Portland, with a planned double header on the Saturday of that series, and UC Santa Barbara.
Among Sacramento State’s 40 wins last season were victories over ranked opponents Oregon State, Texas A&M, Fresno State, and Arizona State, who the Hornets eliminated from the NCAA regional.
“Our wins against Oregon State, Fresno State, and Texas A&M (in 2014) definitely gave us confidence going into our regional,” senior pitcher Brennan Leitao said. “This year’s pre-conference schedule will give us a taste of that regional environment and prepare us to make a run at back-to-back WAC Championships.”
Sacramento State returns to Raley Field for three games under the lights in 2015, hosting Nevada on March 17, Fresno State on April 22, and UC Davis on May 5. The team will also play one midweek game at John Smith Field, facing Pacific on April 14.
“We are excited to once again play at Raley Field as our players enjoyed playing under the lights last year,” Christiansen said. “We are very excited about playing our own games under the lights on our campus in the 2016 season, but in the short term we appreciate the Sacramento River Cats for providing us with the opportunity to play under the lights in 2015.”
The Hornets open WAC conference play on March 20 with a home series against Texas-Pan American. The following weekend the team will host New Mexico State before consecutive road trips to Seattle U and Utah Valley. The Hornets will host Bakersfield April 17-19 but won’t play another game at John Smith Field until their final home series of the regular season against Grand Canyon, May 14-16.
The WAC Tournament will again by held in Mesa, Ariz. May 20-24.
2015 Sacramento State Schedule
