NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – The Merrimack College baseball program unveiled its 2020 schedule on Monday, announcing the Warriors’ first Division I slate in school history.
The Warriors will play a 48-game gauntlet beginning in the middle of February that will see Merrimack travel to various locations across the continental United States. Merrimack will play a full Northeast Conference (NEC) schedule as the eighth program in the league, hosting 12 league games in Andover, Mass. at the program’s new home field at Great Lawrence Technical School (GLTS).
Head coach Nick Barese returns to the dugout for his sixth season after 128 wins over his first five years, winning nearly 60 percent of his games. The program won the 2018 Northeast-10 Conference Championship, the first conference tournament crown for the program in nearly two decades. The team ended its Division II tenure with consecutive appearances in the league title game, and return a core group of seniors and graduate students headlined by All-American Joey Porricelli and Gold Glove award winner Nick Shumski.
Merrimack begins the year with four consecutive non-conference series, beginning in Tulsa, OK, where the Warriors will visit Oral Roberts University from Feb. 14-16. The Warriors will then play a four-game set with Michigan State University, facing the Big Ten Spartans at a neutral site in Greenville, SC (Feb. 21-23). The Warriors will also visit Wofford (Feb. 28-March 1) and William & Mary (March 6-8). Oral Roberts has made 28 NCAA Tournaments out of the Summit League, Wofford finished as the runner-up in the Southern Conference in 2019 and William & Mary reached the Colonial Athletic Association Semifinals last spring to highlight the competition.
The Warriors play a single game at Stony Brook on Wednesday, March 11, before a four-game trek to Seattle University (March 13-15) for the program’s first games in Washington state. Merrimack concludes the month of March with its first NEC series against Mount St. Mary’s and Central Connecticut State, hosting the Blue Devils for the program’s first-ever Division I home games in Andover (March 27-29).
Four conference series and a single-game trip to Maine highlights the program’s slate in April; Merrimack begins the month with a visit to regional power Bryant before hosting Fairleigh Dickinson (April 10-12) and Long Island University (April 24-26).
The program has 10 games in the month of May to conclude the year beginning with a return trip to Central Connecticut followed by a single game at Northeastern. Merrimack concludes conference play with a trip to Sacred Heart University and hosting Mount Saint Mary’s for the final three games of the season (May 15-17). The Warriors will celebrate Senior Day during their regular season finale against the Mountaineers.
