THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.– With spring right around the corner, Head Coach Marty Slimak and the Cal Lutheran baseball team prepare for another challenging 2020 schedule, hoping to achieve postseason glory for the storied Kingsmen baseball program.
CLU will play a full 40-game slate in the upcoming season, featuring 16 highly-ranked non-conference opponents and 24 contests in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) play.
The Kingsmen will open their season in Tucson, Ariz. where they will face three non-conference foes from the West Region. First up will be UT-Dallas on Feb. 6 followed by Whitman (Wash.) on Feb. 7. On Saturday, Cal Lutheran takes on Sul Ross State before concluding their trip to the Grand Canyon state with another tilt with Whitman on Feb. 8.
"We're going to find out what kind of team we're going to be," said Head Coach Marty Slimak of the four games in Arizona. "We're obviously hoping to win every game, but we need to find out how far along we are and how far we need to come."
The Purple and Gold will jump right into their SCIAC schedule when they return to California with a three-game set against the Beavers of Caltech starting on Feb. 14. A week later, the Kingsmen take on Claremont-Mudd-Scripps for another conference series starting on Feb. 22.
Heading into final days of February, Cal Lutheran hosts Centenary (La.) who reached the NCAA Tournament in 2017. This midweek non-conference matchup will take place Feb. 26.
CLU returns to conference competition on the weekend of Feb. 28 when they face off against Chapman, the defending National Champions.
"This just shows how strong the West Region has become," Slimak said. "We've had two out of the last three National Champions come out of the SCIAC. Everyone in our conference is good and everyone in our conference plays at a very high level."
Another stretch of non-conference contests occupies the beginning of March for Cal Lutheran as Redlands comes to Thousand Oaks for a midweek nonconference tune-up on March 5 before the University of Dallas and Pitt-Bradford visit George "Sparky" Anderson Field for a pair of two-game sets on March 7 and 10.
After two more non-conference matchups, the Kingsmen take on Pomona-Pitzer for a series starting on March 20 before the April slate of games begins with another SCIAC series against La Verne starting on Apr. 3.
CLU leave the state yet again in the middle of April, this time heading north to Oregon where they will first face George Fox on Apr. 9 before taking on powerhouse of the West Region, Linfield, in a three-game set starting on Apr. 11.
The regular season winds down with three very important SCIAC series. Redlands is the first of final three-games sets, starting on Apr. 18. This will be followed by Occidental which begins on Apr. 24 and concluding the regular season schedule will be Whittier, as that series starts on May 1.
Cal Lutheran hopes to return to the top of their conference and get back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017. The last time the Kingsmen featured in postseason play, they ended the season as National Champions.
2020 Schedule: Kingsmen Baseball
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Release by Jeff Rebello, Assistant Sports Information Director
