2013 Schedule

San Francisco, CA – With their fall competition finishing up in early November, Academy of Art University Softball now sets its sights on a more than 46-game campaign set to begin on Feb. 5, 2014. Co-head coaches Sami Strinz and Randy Ward have announced the upcoming schedule that features 30 home contests against a variety of West Region opponents as well as ART U's first trip to Hawaii in two years.

The Urban Knights will get right to work in 2014 as they face two conference champions from a year ago. Playing their season opener Wednesday, Feb. 5 at Mission Blue Field, Academy of Art starts off against Humboldt State, the 2013 CCAA regular season and tournament champion, for the second consecutive year. The weekend brings Saint Martin's, another conference victor leading the GNAC, on Feb. 9. The Jacks won more than 50 games in 2013 including a convincing run of nine consecutive postseason wins to the NCAA Division II Softball World Series.

Ironically it was Humboldt State who ended Saint Martin's season despite the Saints' two victories over Grand Canyon in the DII West Regional Tournament. SMU went 41-16 overall in 2013, but was taken into the eighth inning by Academy of Art in a closely contested 7-6 Saints win on Apr. 6 as part of the Cal State Stanislaus Tournament of Champions.

ART U matches up with two more CCAA members the following two weeks with San Francisco State in town on Feb. 12 and Sonoma State to follow on Feb. 19. Surprisingly, the Knights and Gators have only met four times in the past five years, having split the historical matchup 2-2. The Seawolves were 10-7 on the road last year, ended up finishing third in the conference, and reached the DII West Regional where they defeated Pacific West Conference champion UH Hilo, but fell to Cal State Dominguez Hills and Dixie State.

After beginning PacWest play against Notre Dame de Namur on Feb. 22 in Belmont, Academy of Art hosts the GNAC's Central Washington (Feb. 23) and the CCAA's Cal State East Bay (Feb. 26) before starting March with Dominican (Mar. 1) and Cal State Monterey Bay all at Mission Blue Field. A total of eight of ART U's first 10 games will be played at home.

"We tried to schedule as many challenging West Region opponents as possible," Coach Strinz said. "We are excited to get another crack at some great teams that went postseason last year like Humboldt State and Sonoma State. Additionally, we are eager to host a couple of doubleheaders with our friends from the Pacific Northwest: Central Washington and Saint Martin's. They both have strong programs and they provide some prime opportunities to test ourselves early!"

The middle of March sees ART U take its first trip to Hawaii since 2012 with 10 games scheduled on two islands. The Big Island is first where the Knights face defending PacWest Champion UH Hilo on Mar. 13. Although the Vulcans reached the NCAA West Regionals last season, losses to Dixie State and Sonoma State resulted in an early exit. Up next, Academy of Art heads to Kaneohe for a four-game stretch against Hawaii Pacific spread over two days (Mar. 15-16).

"We tried to challenge ourselves with our early schedule to prepare our team for the grind of being on foreign turf for a week and a half in Hawaii," Coach Strinz said. "Being on the road for that stretch is nothing new for teams in our conference, but it'll require some quick adjustments from our freshmen and sophomores this year. Hilo won our conference last year and Hawaii Pacific does a great job of finding ways to push and win. Our plan and hope is that our pre-conference schedule will prepare us for those battles ahead of us in Hawaii."

ART U's Hawaii roadtrip concludes with Chaminade (Mar. 18) and BYU-Hawaii (Mar. 20) all on Oahu. Last season, the Knights took two from the Seasiders, a team against whom they have an 11-5 all-time record. Following nearly a week of no competition, Academy of Art plays a four-part, home-away series with Holy Names over a span of three days. It begins with the team's return to Mission Blue Field on Mar. 26 and finishes in Oakland on Mar. 28.

A home rematch with NDNU on Mar. 29 closes out the month before Cal State Stanislaus' Tournament of Champions opens April (Apr. 4-6). Although the tournament matchups have not yet been released, ART U will recall the intense six games played over three days in 2013 including the program's first tripleheader. From there, the home-heavy schedule features a four-game series with Azusa Pacific (Apr. 11-12), a team with whom Academy of Art had two close battles in 2013.

It will be games five and six against the Argonauts in Brisbane on Apr. 18 before the final road contests of the regular season take the Knights to San Rafael to meet Dominican (Apr. 19). Two challenging matchups finish off the year as California Baptist (Apr. 25) and Dixie State (Apr. 26), co-PacWest champion, are welcomed to the Bay Area.

"We hope that playing so many games at home gives us a familiarity to play with a playground mentality," Coach Strinz said. "It will be nice to finish up with arguably the toughest part of our schedule at home with Azusa, Dixie State, and California Baptist. We are hoping for some great softball during those series and our bet is that those games will really determine the conference standings!"

As is the custom with the postseason in NCAA Softball, three levels of tournament play take place in May with West Regionals (May 9-11) setting up Super Regionals (May 16-17) and finally the National Championship (May 22-26) at the end.