2023 Baseball Schedule Released
The University of Northwestern Ohio Baseball program has announced their schedule for the upcoming 2023 season.
The #22 UNOH Racers, led by 13th year head coach Kory Hartman, enter the campaign as the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference preseason favorites to win repeat as league champs. UNOH swept the WHAC regular season and tournament titles in 2022 for the first time in program history and will look to earn their third straight trip to the national tounament.
The Racers will open with a three-game seires against national power and preseason #3 Tennessee Wesleyan in Athens, Tennessee February 11-12. UNOH will head west across the Volunteer State for a first time meeting with Cumberland University. The three-game series will open with a double-header February 18 and wrap up with a single game to be played February 19. The Racers continue west to Creve Couer, Missouri for a four-game stop against Missouri Baptist and Midland University. The three teams will play a round robin format March 3-4 that will begin against MoBap followed by the program's first meeting with Midland each day. The UNOH home opener is slated for March 15 with a non-conference matchup against (RV) Indiana Wesleyan, another first-time meeting between programs.
The 2023 WHAC schedule opens March 18 at Siena Heights and will feature a new layout this season. This new layout will see the Racers play some teams twice and others four times. The four-game series' will include Cornerstone, Rochester, Indiana Tech and Aquinas while two-game sets will include Siena Heights, Lourdes Concordia, Cleary, Madonna and UM-Dearborn.
"Conference play will be a challenge this year," said head coach Kory Hartman. "I have seen programs annually getting better within the conference. With coaching changes and the landscape of intercollegiate recruiting being altered by the long-lasting effects of COVID, more teams from within our conference are starting to compete on the national stage. All are good for our conference and our program here at UNOH. We expect to play with an 'X' on our back this season and we welcome the challenge of competing against the nation's best. By doing so, we hope to create an experience that our men can draw upon in post-season play."
The Racers will return nine seniors, six juniors and a sophomore from last years team that include gold glover Erick Castro (SR/Guerrero, Mexico), WHAC first-teamers Tyler Grigalis (JR/Lexington, Kentucky) and Alex Velasco (SR/Las Cruces, New Mexico) and second-teamers Michael Joyce (JR/Land O'Lakes, Florida) and Josue Ortiz (SR/Carolina, Puerto Rico). UNOH also added some key components through transfers that will look to fill holes left by one of the most decorated graduating classes in program history.
"We had a fairly large recruiting class this off season and the fall reflected both depth and a competitive spirit from our men," Hartman added. "Our incoming class included three NCAA Division I transfers, nine Junior College transfers and two high school recruits. These 14 young men will complement our 16 returning players who saw action last year as they captured both the WHAC Conference and Tournament Title. Despite returning 16 men, we lost a lot from the offensive side of the ball and playing these teams early in February and March will assist us in finding the right lineup for another run at a WHAC conference title and into the national tournament."