Baseball season opens Friday
If it’s February, it must be time for Washington State’s home baseball opener, right?
Really, it is.
The Cougars will entertain Creighton University at 3:30 p.m. Friday in the first of a three-game weekend series scheduled to play out at Bailey-Brayton Field. The non-conference matchup will serve as the season opener for both schools and mark the earliest home game in the history of WSU baseball.
Gonzaga University, the region’s only other NCAA Division I baseball team, will also open its season Friday by traveling to Stillwater, Okla., to take on 27th-ranked Oklahoma State in a 2 p.m. game that will kick off a four-game, non-conference weekend series.
Both games will be a part of a true and unique Opening Day for D-I schools, which – with the exception of Hawaii and Hawaii-Hilo – were restricted, under a first-year NCAA rule, from practicing before Feb. 1 and playing prior to Friday. In the past, teams could start practicing and playing in January, giving schools from warm climates a decided early season advantage over northern schools that normally can’t practice outside until early February.
WSU’s Donnie Marbut, like most coaches from northern schools, likes the change, especially after having to open seasons in the past by heading south to play warm-weather opponents that had already been playing for two or three weeks.
“It’s nice in that you know whoever we’re playing this first weekend, we’re all 0-0,” said Marbut, whose Cougars finished 28-26 overall and 10-14 in the Pacific-10 Conference last spring. “In some areas, schools are going to still have advantages because of the weather, but this helps a little bit.”
In past years, Marbut said, warm-weather schools had an early-season edge in nearly every aspect of the game.
“And they didn’t have those first-game jitters,” he said. “When we played them, they already had game experience and extra time to work with their team. They knew what they needed to work on, and they could make adjustments.
“When you’re playing for the first time, it’s hard to make adjustments, because you don’t know for sure what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well. That’s probably the biggest thing.”
Gonzaga coach Mark Machtolf also likes the rule change, which he feels will help level the playing field most years – although heavy snowfalls earlier this month have kept his Bulldogs indoors, with the exception of three practices staged in Lewiston.
“The negative is that you have a shorter window to fit all of your games into,” Machtolf said. “That means you have to play a lot more four-game weekend series in non-conference and a lot more midweek games, which is going to make that pitching even more important that it already is.”
In Creighton, WSU will face an Omaha-based team that finished 45-16 last season and won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. Following this weekend’s series against the Bluejays, the Cougars travel to Las Vegas to play two games against UNLV before returning home to entertain Wright State and Kent State in weekend series.
“Unfortunately, we’re bringing in three real good midmajor opponents, and they’re all from cold-weather places,” said Marbut, who does his scheduling. “So, shoot, there’s no real advantage for the Cougs. I don’t know who set up the schedule, but the guy’s not very smart.”
Gonzaga expects to have its hands full, as well, against an Oklahoma State team that advanced to the Super Regionals of last year’s NCAA tournament.
The Bulldogs, who finished 33-25 overall and 15-6 in West Coast Conference play last spring, were picked in a poll of conference coaches to finish fifth in the WCC this season. Following this weekend’s series against OSU, the Zags return home to entertain BYU in a three-day, four-game series that kicks off at 3 p.m. at Washington Trust Field next Thursday.
The game will be the earliest home opener for GU since 2002.