Arizona Wildcats Baseball: Team Excited for Opening Day

By Shereen Rayan | Feb 13, 2015

Opening Day 6pm Hi Corbett Field: The Arizona Wildcat baseball team starts the season with a three game series this Friday, February 13^th at home against Eastern Michigan.

The Wildcats play their home games at Hi Corbett Field, off campus in Tucson, AZ. The University signed a five year contract where they moved the team for 2012 season after they made renovations.

Moving to Hi Corbett Field, which is three miles southeast of the UA campus, has been very beneficial for the team as attendance increased and they won their fourth national championship after the move. Being able to serve beer off campus has not hurt attendance either.

There are five Pac-12 schools ranked in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) pre-season Poll; No. 8 UCLA, No. 17 Oregon, No. 21 Arizona State, No. 24 Stanford, and No. 32 Oregon State.

Arizona is currently not ranked although the team did receive votes; they play No. 15 Rice early into the season, so beating Rice and any of the ranked Pac-12 teams may help them in the ranking during the season. Colleges that rank at the top are the returning 2014 Champions, No. 1 Vanderbilt, followed by No. 2 Virginia, and No. 3 TCU.

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Head Coach No. 7 Andy Lopez and his players are really looking forward to Opening Day as they explain in the Arizona Baseball Practice Report:

Outfielder Joseph Maggi No. 15 is looking forward to for opening day “Just all the fans coming out…we get a good 5,000 a game especially on opening night.”

Short Stop Kevin Newman No. 2 is also looking forward to opening day, “It’s a great time, we get to see the fans come out, obviously it’s going to be a big crowd. The build up to opening day is just huge. [..] Personally I love it when ZonaZoo is out there heckling the other team I think that’s awesome!”

Head Coach Andy Lopez feels very positive about the 2015 team, “You know there’s nine guys from the national championship team that are still here blaring, so I think they should see some real leadership out of that group, you know some hidden motivation from that group to kind of correct what happened last year. [..] I think there is a good balance, old group, young group, and hopefully it will be a perfect storm…”

More information about Junior Short Stop Kevin Newman from Poway, California:

Newman is the team leader and was named to the USA Baseball 50-player preseason Golden Spikes Award watch list. Newman is interested in working in Sports and business and continuing his baseball career. Here are some of his highlights from the 2014 season:

Earned Louisville Slugger Freshman All-America honors and was named to the Pac-12 All-Conference team
One of two freshmen to be named a quarterfinalist for the Brooks Wallace Award
Started all 55 games at shortstop
Ranked fourth on club and eighth in conference with .336 batting average
Posted team-best .329 batting average in road games and led club with 23 multi-hit games
Twice compiled a season-best 11-game hitting streak from Feb. 27 through March 13 and from April 5 through April 26
Finished 10th in the conference for both total hits (73) and runs batted in (42)
One of three players on the team to total at least 40 runs scored (42) and 40 runs batted in
Played outstanding defense throughout the season highlighted by a .978 fielding percentage and only six errors
Capped sensational rookie season with Pac-12 Player of the Week honors for his performances against USC (May 24-26)

The season ends for Arizona on May 24^th, the NCAA Regionals begin on May 29^th, the NCAA Super Regions on June 5^th, and the Men’s College World Series on Saturday June 13^th. Not being a ranked team pre-season is not a concern for Arizona, we have been down that road before with this last season’s football team and ended up ranked in the top 10 teams in the country.

Let’s all support the team and go out to Hi Corbett Field, they are expecting us! Go Cats!

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