(Tucson, AZ) Arizona softball has released its 2020 schedule, head coach Mike Candrea announced on Thursday.
Arizona’s schedule will be among the most difficult in the country once again in 2020. UA’s heavyweight schedule features:
Each of the other top five teams from the final 2019 NFCA Top 25 (& eight total ranked teams)
Ten total games against five of the other seven 2019 Women’s College World Series teams
Fourteen 2019 NCAA Tournament teams
Home games vs. both the defending national champions (UCLA; April 24-26) and national runners up (Oklahoma; Feb. 15)
“We have another challenging schedule this year,” said head coach Mike Candrea. “With our group of seniors and all of our experience coming back after last year’s World Series run, it will be good for them to play some good competition early on. Our job is to try to prepare them for making another run in postseason. We may take some bumps along the way, but I think it will help us more than playing a schedule with teams that we overmatch. It’s going to be a good, competitive nonconference schedule and will prepare us for Pac-12 play and hopefully postseason very well.”
Arizona will open the season on the road for the third straight season, returning to the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Arizona for the 28th time in school history and first since 2018. The Wildcats will face Kansas, Seattle University, Portland State, Western Michigan and Tennessee from Feb. 7-9 in Tempe. The Wildcats have a 114-21 all-time record in the event, which is hosted by Arizona State.
Arizona will then return home for its home-opening tournament, the Hillenbrand Invitational (Feb. 14-16). The Cats will host Long Beach State, Northern Iowa, Bryant, defending national runner-up Oklahoma and Long Beach State in the three-day event at Hillenbrand Stadium. The Wildcats are 115-5 all-time at the Hillenbrand Invitational, which they have hosted 23 times since Hillenbrand was built in 1994.
The Cats then returns to the road for two straight weekends, beginning Feb. 20-22 for its annual trip to Palm Springs, California and the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic. As usual, the Wildcats will play some of the best teams in the nation in the event. Arizona will play four SEC schools that were in the NCAA Tournament a year ago — Texas A&M, Missouri, Florida and Auburn — as well as San Diego State in the event. This will be Arizona’s 11th consecutive season participating in the event, which they hold a 49-16 all-time record.
The Wildcats will then head to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the Easton Crimson Classic (Feb. 28-March1), where they will face 2019 WCWS team Alabama (twice) as well as McNeese State (twice) and UT Arlington.
Arizona then wraps up its nonconference portion of its schedule with the Wildcat Classic (March 8-10), when it welcomes South Dakota, Boise State, SIUE and Indiana to Hillenbrand Stadium for the three-day event. The Cats then host Saint Joseph’s in a single midweek matchup on Tuesday, March 10.
UA will begin Pac-12 play vs. Oregon State (March 13-15) before hitting the road to face rival Arizona State (March 20-22) in Tempe, Arizona the following week.
During Arizona’s bye week, the Wildcats are set to welcome BYU, New Mexico and a third team that will be announced at a later date, to Hillenbrand for the Southwest Showdown, March 26-28.
On Wednesday, April 1, Arizona will host New Mexico State in the teams’ annual midweek doubleheader.
The Cats then return to the road to face Stanford in Palo Alto, California, April 3-5.
Arizona will then host California in a Thursday-Saturday series on Easter weekend, April 9-11.
Up next, the Cats travel to Eugene, Oregon to face Oregon, April 17-19.
The Wildcats will then host the next eight games at Hillenbrand Stadium beginning with defending national champion UCLA (April 24-26) before hosting Grand Canyon in a doubleheader in Arizona’s final midweek games of the season on Wednesday, April 29. The Cats finish off the homestand vs. Utah, May 1-3.
Arizona finishes off the 2020 regular season at Washington, May 7-9, in Seattle.
Selection Sunday (May 02) kicks off the start of the postseason, which officially begins May 15-17 for Regionals. Super Regionals will be held May 22-24 and the Women’s College World Series will take place May 28-June 3 in Oklahoma City.
https://arizonawildcats.com/services/download_file.ashx?file_location=https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/arizona.sidearmsports.com/documents/2019/11/14/SBSchedule_2020.pdf
Courtesy of Arizona Communication Services.
