HIGH POINT, N.C. – High Point University baseball head coach Craig Cozart announced the schedule for the upcoming 2016 baseball season on Thursday. The Panthers will take on the likes of Maryland, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Davidson, Elon and East Carolina in non-conference action.
“We have put together another exciting and challenging schedule for the 2016 season,” Cozart said. “Once again we open up with cross-town rival UNCG and then welcome several new additions to our non-conference portion in Marist, Wright State, LaSalle and Rider. Our biggest non-conference road test will be when we travel to Maryland. The Big South Conference schedule will be as challenging as ever as I anticipate our league will once again be extremely deep. Our team has performed very well this fall, put in a tremendous amount of quality work and the chemistry within the club is special. We are going to be a fun team for our fans to support.”
High Point will open the season with 16 of its first 17 games at Williard Stadium. The Panthers’ will begin the 2016 campaign with a home-and-home weekend series against UNCG will the games on Friday and Sunday being played at HPU and Saturday’s game being played in Greensboro.
Following the series against UNCG, High Point will play a stretch of three weekend series and two midweek series all at Williard Stadium. HPU will host Marist, Dayton and Rider for weekend series and both Wright State and La Salle in two-game midweek series.
High Point’s one non-conference road series will take place beginning on April 1 when the team will travel north to take on the University of Maryland out of the Big 10. The Terrapins won 42 games last season and advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals where they fell to Virginia.
The Panthers will once again take on a talented roster of North Carolina schools in midweek action. HPU will play home-and-home against North Carolina Central, Wake Forest, Elon, Davidson and UNC Wilmington. The team will also host a midweek game against East Carolina and play a road midweek tie at North Carolina.
High Point will play eight Big South conference series in 2016. The Panthers will host Winthrop, Longwood, Radford and Liberty and will travel to face UNC Asheville, Gardner-Webb, Coastal Carolina and Campbell. The trip to Coastal Carolina will be the first for HPU since the 2012 season.
The Big South Tournament is set to begin on May 24 though a location for the tournament has yet to be decided upon.
High Point returns 22 letter winners in 2016, including four position starters and seven of its top 10 pitchers. All-Conference selection Josh Greene, junior Chris Clare and sophomores Carson Jackson and Hunter Lee will provide experience in the field while redshirt-seniors Joe Goodman and Scot Hoffman and junior Andre Scrubb will anchor the pitching staff.
