CHICAGO – Second-year Chicago State baseball head coach Michael Caston has announced today the release of the team’s 55-game 2010 schedule. This year’s slate features 21 home contests that will be held at Brooks Field on the campus of Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep High School, located at 250 E. 111th Street on Chicago’s Far South Side.
In addition, the Cougars will enter their first season as a member of the Great West Conference after serving as an independent for the past three years. CSU also faces non-conference opposition from the Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and Missouri Valley Conferences.
“The Chicago State Baseball staff and team are very excited about our schedule for the upcoming 2010 season. We are moving into our first year in the Great West Conference and our conference schedule will allow us to be competitive within our conference in our first year,” said Caston. “Our non-conference schedule features Notre Dame, Purdue, Illinois, Kansas State and Mercer. We have put together a tough non-conference schedule that will give us experience and get us ready to challenge for the Great West Championship."
CSU begins a season-opening nine game road swing on March 6-8 with a four-game set at Mercer before traveling to Palm Beach, Fla., for a four-game series against former Mid-Continent Conference foe Southern Utah. Following a March 23 contest at Eastern Illinois, the Cougars welcome IPFW to Brooks Field for their home opener on March 24 before embarking on a 10-game road trip versus Purdue (March 26-28), Indiana State (March 30), Illinois (March 31), Valparaiso (April 2-3) and IPFW (April 6).
The Green and White continues its April stretch with an April 7 showdown versus Eastern Illinois at Brooks Field before traveling to New York on April 9-11 for its first-ever Great West Conference series against NYIT.
After a April 13 road game at perennial Big East Conference contender Notre Dame, CSU returns to Brooks Field for a season-best 11-game homestand with weekend conference series against NJIT (April 16-18) and Utah Valley (April 23-25) sandwiched between mid-week games versus Indiana State (April 14), Purdue (April 20) and North Park (April 21).
Following the homestand, the Cougars hit the road for a mid-week series at Kansas State on April 27-28 and a four-game Great West series at Houston Baptist from April 30-May 2. CSU closes its home slate with Great West weekend series against North Dakota (May 7-9) and Texas-Pan American (May 14-16) before battling Northern Colorado on the road on May 20-22 in its final conference series of the year.
The inaugural Great West Conference Tournament will take place on May 26-29 in Edinburg, Texas with all eight teams competing in the tournament.
CSU welcomes back 15 players and seven position starters from last season’s team that includes a pair of Academic All-Great West Conference honorees.
"We had a spectacular recruiting season this past year and we were able to attract some very good players to Chicago State University. My hat goes off to my recruiting coordinator, Assistant Coach Neal Frendling, for he has given us the opportunity to compete for a Great West Championship,” Caston added. “With a mixture of our returning players, junior college transfers and incoming freshman, look for the Chicago State Baseball team to put up some numbers offensively and defensively. We will be a completely different team in 2010. The Chicago State baseball team is headed in the right direction and I feel the foundation has been set in order to build a legitimate baseball program."
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