Hill announces 2020 McNeese baseball schedule

LAKE CHARLES – A home tournament that includes the Baton Rouge Regional runner-up, Southern Mississippi, a home-and-home with UL-Lafayette and Louisiana Tech, and big road games against LSU and Texas highlights the 2020 McNeese Baseball schedule, head coach Justin Hill announced on Tuesday.

In addition, the Cowboys will play 32 of their 56 games at Joe Miller Ballpark including 13 of the first 17 contests being at The Jeaux.

McNeese will take a visit to Baton Rouge to take on the LSU Tigers on April 14, will have a home-and-home series against ULL (March 10 at McNeese and March 31 at ULL), and will travel to Austin to take on the University of Texas on May 12. LSU finished the season last year ranked No. 14.

The 2019 defending Southland Conference Tournament Champion Cowboys will open up the season at home with a four-game series against Mississippi Valley State.

After hosting the Delta Devils, McNeese will host the first game of a home-and-home with Louisiana Tech before hitting the road for the first of two straight tournaments. The first being the Mardi Gras Tournament hosted by Nicholls and joined by Arkansas-Little Rock. The Cowboys will play each opponent twice before heading back home for an eight-game home stretch.

The second tournament and the beginning of that home stretch will have the Cowboys hosting the Baton Rouge Regional runner-up Southern Mississippi and Valparaiso in the Lake Area Classic on February 28-March 1, followed by a three-game series against ULM (March 6-8), and then the first game of a home-and-home against ULL.

Next, the Cowboys hit the road for their longest road stretch of the year, a seven-game stretch that will include the beginning of conference play.

The first series will be against the Lamar Cardinals on March 13-15 in Beaumont, followed by a trip to Houston to take on the Owls of Rice in a mid-week game on March 13, and then finish off with their second southland conference series against UIW in San Antonio March 20-22.

The Cowboys will then return home for a seven of the next eight games, starting with a three-game conference series against last year’s regular season champions Sam Houston State on March 27-29, followed by their second game against ULL in Lafayette on March 31, and finished by a id-week game against Prairie View A&M (April 7) and a three-game series against the Central Arkansas Bears (April 3-5) who the Cowboys defeated to claim their first SLC Tournament crown since 2003.

The yearly tradition of heading to Baton Rouge for a one-game stand continues again in 2020 with a Tuesday night matchup against the Tigers (April 14) before hosting Northwestern State at the Jeaux April 17-19.

The Cowboys will then hit the road for one game to play their second matchup against Louisiana Tech (April 21) in Ruston in a mid-week game before hosting Abilene Christian April 24-26 in a league series and Alcorn State in a two game mid-week series.

The remaining schedule has the Cowboys on the road against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (May 1-3), hosting Southeastern Louisiana (May 5) in a non-conference matchup, and a mid-week matchup against Texas (May 12) that falls in-between their final two league series’ versus Houston Baptist (May 8-10) at home and at Stephen F. Austin (May 14-16) to end the season.

The Southland Conference Tournament will return to Whataburger Field in Corpus Christi, Texas for the first time since 2010 on May 20-24.

2020 McNeese Baseball Schedule
Feb 14 Mississippi Valley State
Feb 15 Mississippi Valley State (DH)
Feb 16 Mississippi Valley State
Feb 18 Louisiana Tech
Feb 22 %Arkansas-Little Rock
Feb 23 %Arkansas-Little Rock
Feb 23 %Nicholls
Feb 24 %Nicholls
Feb 28 #Valparaiso
Feb 29 #Southern Miss
Mar 1 #Valparaiso
Mar 1 #Southern Miss
Mar 6 ULM
Mar 7 ULM
Mar 8 ULM
Mar 10 ULL
Mar 13 at Lamar
Mar 14 at Lamar
Mar 15 at Lamar
Mar 17 at Rice
Mar 20 at UIW
Mar 21 at UIW
Mar 22 at UIW
Mar 27 Sam Houston State
Mar 28 Sam Houston State
Mar 29 Sam Houston State
Mar 31 at ULL
Apr 3 Central Arkansas
Apr 4 Central Arkansas
Apr 5 Central Arkansas
Apr 7 Prairie View A&M
Apr 9 at New Orleans
Apr 10 at New Orleans
Apr 11 at New Orleans
Apr 14 at LSU
Apr 17 Northwestern State
Apr 18 Northwestern State
Apr 19 Northwestern State
Apr 21 at Louisiana Tech
Apr 24 Abilene Christian
Apr 25 Abilene Christian
Apr 26 Abilene Christian
Apr 28 Alcorn
Apr 29 Alcorn
May 1 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
May 2 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
May 3 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
May 5 Southeastern La.
May 8 Houston Baptist
May 9 Houston Baptist
May 10 Houston Baptist
May 12 at Texas
May 14 at Stephen F. Austin
May 15 at Stephen F. Austin
May 16 at Stephen F. Austin
%-Mardi Gras Tournament (Thibodaux, LA)
#- Lake Area Classic (Lake Charles, LA)

May 20-24 Southland Conference Tournament
May 29-Jun. 1 NCAA Regionals
June 5-7 NCAA Super Regionals
June 12-22 NCAA Men’s College World Series