By Haley Stesiak
Arizona State baseball released their tentative schedule for 2017 earlier this week featuring seven NCAA tournament teams, including three that made appearances in the 2016 College World Series.
The slate features big competition early in the season with a mid-week game against CWS participant Oklahoma State on Feb. 21. The Sun Devils will then head to Fort Worth, Texas for a series against their 2016 Regional opponent and CWS participant, TCU (March 24-26).
The host Horned Frogs knocked the Sun Devils out of the Super Regionals in June.
After returning from TCU, ASU will have a 12-game home stretch featuring New Mexico State (Feb. 28), Loyola Marymount (March 3-5), Cal State Fullerton (March 7-8) and Long Beach State (March 10-12).
Pac-12 play for ASU will begin March 17-19 against Oregon State, wrapping up the long home stretch.
Their first conference road test will be in Los Angeles March 24-26 against USC. The Trojans handed the Sun Devils their worst loss in school history, 31-9, to finish the 2016 regular season.
ASU finished Pac-12 play 16-14 last spring, tied for third with College World Series runner-up Arizona and Oregon State.
This year, their biggest challenge in the Pac-12 may lie towards the end of the season against NCAA tournament participant Washington and UofA.
With that being said, a clean slate for a new season makes it anyone’s to take regardless of preseason speculation.
