NEW YORK – The Columbia baseball team will begin the 2019 campaign with a four-game series from March 1-3 at Big 12 member Oklahoma, head coach Brett Boretti announced today. The Lions, who are coming off their fourth Ivy League Championship in the past six seasons in 2018, will face three non-conference opponents that reached the NCAA Tournament and several more that challenged for conference titles.
“We’re really excited about how this schedule came together,” Boretti said. “We always challenge our team by playing the best possible competition early in the season and this spring will be a great experience for our players. We’re fortunate to continue some of our local rivalries and it should be another very competitive year in the Ivy League.”
After the season-opening season series in Norman, the Lions will head west for a four-game set at Cal Poly (Mar. 8-10), who finished second in the Big West a year ago. Columbia will then start Spring Break at Atlantic Sun runner-up North Florida (Mar. 15-17) and return to Coral Gables to face Miami twice (Mar. 19-20) for the first time since pushing the Hurricanes to the final day of the 2015 NCAA Regionals.
Columbia will play 12 home games at Robertson Field at Satow Stadium, beginning with the Ivy League opener against Cornell (Mar. 23-24). The Ivy League schedule format will remain three nine-inning contests with the top-two regular season finishers competing in the Ivy League Championship series (May 18-19), hosted at the higher seed.
The Lions will continue a seven-game home stand against Manhattan (Mar. 27) and Dartmouth (Mar. 30-31) before an eight-game road swing, beginning at defending Big East Champions St. John’s (Apr. 3). Ancient Eight action at Princeton (Apr. 6-7) and an ILCS rematch at Yale (Apr. 13-14) will be sandwiched around a midweek tilt at Fordham (Apr. 9).
Monmouth comes to town on April. 17, “prior to Columbia Baseball Homecoming weekend against Brown (Apr. 20-21) and the home finale against Rutgers (Apr. 24). Columbia will finish the regular season with seven-straight on the road at Harvard (Apr. 27-28), Army West Point (May 1) and Penn (May 3-4).
