University of Saint Katherine closes

For the second time in 2024, a California Pacific Conference member university has closed its doors.

On Friday, April 27, the University of St. Katherine announced it was entering bankruptcy proceedings and ceasing operations at the end of the semester. The small (about 300 students) school in San Marcos is one of the few Christian colleges in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

USK was founded in 2010, and competed in 13 sports. It was probably best known outside the region for playing an annual exhibition game against San Diego State in men’s basketball.

The Firebirds finished the 2024 baseball season with a 5-23 overall record, 4-16 in conference.

USK has planned to transfer to the Golden State Athletic Conference next year – another NAIA conference. With the demise of USK and the earlier closing of the University of of Antelope Valley, the Cal Pac conference is now down to 11 baseball participants.

This summer, three additional schools are scheduled to move to the GSAC: Benedictine–Mesa, Embry–Riddle at Prescott, and Park–Gilbert.

Lots of schedule changes for March 23-24

There were a few rainouts today across Southern California due to the scattered (but often heavy) showers; check the schedule of any game you were planning to attend. Some were pushed from Saturday to Sunday, but call ahead as the storm is forecast to linger.

More rain disruptions

With another storm set to hit Southern California this weekend, the University of San Diego announced that it’s three-game series against St. Mary’s will be condensed into two days. There will be a single-admission double-header on Friday, March 22, and the third game played on Saturday – although an earlier start time has not yet been finalized.

When Saturday’s start time is set, it will be posted to USD’s baseball site.

UAV shuts down, ending baseball mid-season

The California Pacific Conference announced last week that the University of Antelope Valley has dropped its baseball and softball programs effective immediately, with remaining games in their 2024 seasons cancelled. the conference announced that the two conference series UAV had already played will be counted as non-conference games in the season standings.

Shortly after that, the university itself announced it was shutting down completely – with March 6 the last day of operations.

UAV had started baseball play in 2015, and in that tie had won six conference championships – playing in the NAIA College World Series in 2018.

The school was founded in 1997 as a medical careers college, later expanding its degree offerings.

When the rain comes …

In a near-repeat of the 2023 season, 2024 opened wet and stormy, with nearly every school in Southern California having to cancel or postpone multiple games.

Point Loma Nazarene suffered the most, as a sinkhole made their home field unplayable for several weeks. They are scheduled to return to action on their home field this Friday, March 1, vs. Westmont.

SoCal Baseball continues to play a bit of catch-up trying to adjust to all the rescheduled games. We should be fully up to date by this weekend.

See you in the bleachers!

Play ball!

Finished off UC San Diego and UC Riverside, and all of our NCAA Division I schools are now in the calendar for 2024! We are busy grinding away trying to get caught up with the rest of Div. II and Div. III, plus NAIA. It’s a bit hodge-podge in the lower divisions right now as we posted the schedules that were released first – and there were a lot more late to the party schedules than we anticipated.

We’ll start updating results this weekend, and by next week should be completely caught up.

In the meantime, what are you waiting for – go catch a game!

Welcome to the expanded SoCalBaseball for 2024!

After last year’s inaugural season of providing calendars and scores for collegiate baseball in San Diego and Orange Counties. this year we’ve expanded into Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties!

As some schools were still releasing their schedules as of last week, we’re a bit further behind than we’d like to be – particularly with some NAIA schools having already started their 2024 season!

We are working overtime to get caught up, and you can now see the 2024 schedules of the following schools:

  • Cal State Fullerton
  • Cal State Northridge
  • Long Beach State
  • San Diego State
  • UC Irvine
  • UCLA
  • UC Riverside
  • USC
  • USD
  • Loyola Marymount
  • Pepperdine
  • Point Loma Nazarene
  • Cal Baptist
  • Biola
  • Chapman
  • Westmont

Keep checking back – we’ll have the rest posted soon!

2024 season almost upon us

As almost all schools have now released their 2024 schedules, we are busy updating the calendar here at SoCalBaseball.

It will be a historic season in many ways, with the Pac-12 wrapping up its final season in its present form. In the Big West, 2023 season champ UC San Diego will be in its final year of NCAA ineligibility after moving up to Division 1.

We’re looking forward to the new season!