HIGH POINT, N.C. – High Point University baseball head coach Craig Cozart announced the team’s schedule for the upcoming 2013 season on Friday. HPU will open the season at The Citadel Memorial Challenge and will play 26 home games including contests against East Carolina, Charlotte, Wake Forest, Duke, Elon and Appalachian State.
“The 2013 High Point University baseball schedule is another challenging slate for our team,” Cozart said. “We open the season at The Citadel Memorial Challenge where we will face several quality teams. We will also play difficult midweek games against teams from Conference USA, the Atlantic 10, the Southern Conference and the ACC and we have an exciting trip to New Orleans to play Tulane. We built this schedule to put ourselves in position for an at-large bid by elevating our RPI against top-notch non-conference opponents. We also hope to put ourselves in position to win our division and finish among the top teams in the Big South.
The season will begin on Feb. 15 when the Panthers head to Charleston, S.C., to play in The Citadel Memorial Challenge. HPU will face Kansas State (Feb. 15), George Mason (Feb. 16) and The Citadel (Feb. 17) in a three-day tournament. High Point then returns to Williard Stadium to open its home schedule with five-straight games. The Panthers will play a midweek contest against Charlotte on Feb. 20, a three-game series against Long Island on Feb. 22-24 and a midweek game against Appalachian State on Feb. 26.
Following its game against the Mountaineers, High Point returns to the road for seven of its next nine games including its first Big South series of the season against Presbyterian College on March 1-3. The stretch will conclude with a trip to New Orleans, La., to face Tulane in a weekend series on March 8-10.
The 2013 season is the first in which the Big South Conference will use a division set up for baseball. High Point will play in the North Division along with Campbell, Liberty, Longwood, Radford and VMI. HPU will play a three-game series against each of the other five teams in its division and three series against teams from the South Division (Charleston Southern, Coastal Carolina, Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian College, UNC Asheville and Winthrop).
The Panthers will get back into Big South Conference action on March 22 when they host Liberty in a three-game weekend series. HPU will also host Longwood on April 5-7, Campbell on May 3-5 and Gardner-Webb on May 10-12.
In addition to its three-game series at Presbyterian College, High Point will play road conference series at Radford on April 12-14, at UNC Asheville on April 19-21 and at VMI on May 16-18.
Over 30 of High Point’s 56 games will be against teams that finished in the top 150 in last season’s RPI. HPU will play six games against four different teams who participated in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, including home and home series with Appalachian State and East Carolina and a trip to North Carolina. The Panthers will also play midweek home and home series with Charlotte, Wake Forest, Elon and Duke.
The conference season comes to a close with the Big South Tournament which will be held on May 21-25in Lynchburg, Va.
High Point adds 11 newcomers this season to a veteran team which returns 27 letter winners from 2012. Among HPU’s returners this season are Big South All-Tournament selections Ryan Retz, Devin Bujnovsky and Spencer Angelis as well as Freshman All-American Joe Goodman. The Panthers also return pitchers Jared Avidon, Jacob Newberry and Jaime Schultz to spearhead a strong starting rotation. Top newcomers include senior Adam Berry, juniors Kyle Brandenburg and Michael Heller and freshman Sly Edwards.