2019 Baseball Schedule Released
8/30/2018 10:36:00 AM | Baseball
MALIBU, Calif. – The 2019 Pepperdine baseball schedule was released on Wednesday, as announced by Head Coach Rick Hirtensteiner, who enters his fourth year at the helm. This year, the Waves will begin the season with eight straight road games, including a tournament in Arizona and a road trip to Nashville, Tenn. to take on perennial powerhouse Vanderbilt, who were in the 2018 NCAA tournament, in a three-game series.
"We have a fairly veteran club coming back, so I think that we are at a pretty good spot to handle a lot of road games," said Hirtensteiner of the road-heavy start. "It's not what we normally do, but with how road games are weighted RPI-wise, if you win those games, it puts the team in a good place to have a high RPI come the end of the year."
After the return from Nashville, the Waves will head to Santa Barbara for a 3-game, away-home-away series, with the home opener on March 2 sandwiched between two away games. The first home series will be against UC Davis beginning on March 8, just one week before West Coast Conference play begins.
"We always go into the year hoping to win the conference championship and the conference tournament to get to a Regional," Said Hirtensteiner on the expectations of conference play. "We have a lot of guys from last year's regular season champions, and I think that it puts us in a really good starting spot."
WCC play starts with an away series against rival San Diego beginning on March 15. The first home WCC Series will be against defending WCC Tournament champions Gonzaga in a rematch of the tournament championship beginning on March 22. The other home series in conference play are against Santa Clara (4/5-7), LMU (4/26-28) and St. Mary's (5/17-19).
(5/14). Of the nine midweek games, four are against teams that made the NCAA tournament last year, including Fullerton, who made it to a super-regional. CSUNAs usual, the Waves have tough non-conference midweek games. This year they will take on Cal Poly (3/12, 5/7), Minnesota (3/19), Cal State Fullerton (3/26), USC (4/16) UCLA (3/5, 4/30) and
In total, the Waves will have 20 home games in 2019.
