There will be nothing uncommon about South Arkansas College opening the season against North Arkansas College on Saturday.
The Stars’ first four games in the history of the program came against the Pioneers two years ago, and they also met on the first day of the season last year.
But beyond that, there is much that has changed, particularly to the Region 2 schedule.
In their first two years, the Stars played four-game series against each team member of Region 2.
However, with the additions of Arkansas State Mid-South and Arkansas State-Mountain Home, there is now an Arkansas division of junior colleges playing baseball with SAU Tech, Arkansas-Rich Mountain and National Park making up the region schedule this year. Southeast Arkansas College and Arkansas State-Three Rivers will officially join the region schedule next year, but will play against their fellow Region 2 foes this year. Now instead of four-game series, Region 2 series will be three games with one game on Thursday and a doubleheader on Saturday.
The lone exception is the series between SouthArk and ASU-Mountain Home, which will be a single game on Friday with a doubleheader on Saturday.
It it also a round-robin schedule with six games total between each school.
For SouthArk coach Cannon Lester, the shorter series bring plenty of strategy on how he will use his pitching staff.
“It’s definitely different this year,” Lester said. “I’ll be honest. I’m excited not to go to Oklahoma as much. That excites me. Nothing against Oklahoma. Looking at the schedule, conference opens up on February 29th against SAU Tech. We’re playing a nine-inning game on a Thursday at our place, then a seven and a nine at their place on Saturday, so just talking about pure strategy, it changes totally.
“We’re used to playing a four-game series and on back-to-back days on a lot of these on Friday and Saturday, so you had to be really careful, especially the first day when you went and got guys. You probably left guys in a little longer than they should have. This year, it’s going to be different. We’re probably talking all hands on deck on Thursday. If a guy throws an inning on Thursday, who’s to say he can’t come back and throw an inning or two on Saturday?
“We didn’t have that luxury before. Honestly, you could probably get away with throwing seven or eight guys in conference. If those seven or eight are really good, you can do really well. We’re going to play everybody twice. I think you’ll get to see some strategy the second time through. You’ll get to see which teams have progressed and got stronger, and some teams might go the other way. We’re going to get to play these teams six times home and away, which is pretty interesting.
“I’m excited about it. I think it cuts down on travel and expenses a little bit. No longer do we have seven-, eight-hour road trips like we did. That part of it is exciting. Playing each other twice, you get to create a little more rivalry there. Maybe it’s not this year, but next year. It looks like it’s going to stay this way for awhile. You’re going to get really comfortable with those teams. You’re going to have to make adjustments, you’re going to know what they do. Sometimes it’s not that way. I’m excited about the conference schedule this year.”
The postseason will also have a different format. The top four teams from the Arkansas and Oklahoma sides will qualify for the Plains District Tournament, which will be held in Enid, Okla.
The No.1 seed from the Arkansas side opens against the No. 4 seed from the Oklahoma side and vice versa with the two and three seeds from each side meeting.
When SouthArk won the Plains District Tournament last year, they earned a berth to the NJCAA Division II World Series.
This year, there will be extra work for the champion.
The winner of the Plains District Tournament takes on the Region 1 champion, which is home to schools in Arizona, in a best-of-three series with the winner going to the World Series.
“Eight teams is a lot,” Lester said. “You make it out of that gauntlet, then you are matched up with the Arizona winner in a super regional. You won’t have much time to rest after regionals. I think whoever wins it this year on our side is going to get to host. It’s a best-of-three series, and whoever wins that goes to the World Series. It’s definitely a little bit different than before.”
When asked which of the newcomers might be able to make a splash, Lester thought ASU-Mountain Home’s experience from playing last year will serve them well.
“I think ASU-Mountain Home will be pretty good,” Lester said. “I know their coach up there (Spencer Adcock) and he recruits really well. They played last year, but not in our conference. They’ve got quite a few transfers as well, a lot of innings back and a lot of guys that are coming in that have thrown big innings in other places. They’ll have an older team.
“SAU Tech will have an older team. Kind of like us last year, those two teams are in their second year and they played a lot of guys last year that maybe they shouldn’t have played, but it made them grow up a lot. That will be interesting. I think Mountain Home and National Park will probably be the two most talented teams we play, but we’ll see. I didn’t really get to see a whole lot this fall with them or hear about them, so we’ll see when the first round rolls through of us playing those conference series.”
Prior to the start of Region 2 play, SouthArk, which enters the season ranked No. 11 in the preseason poll, is playing a non-conference schedule that will certainly have them battle-tested.
The Stars have seven games scheduled against teams in the preseason poll, including two against No. 2 LSU-Eunice and a pair of games against Parkland (Ill.) College, which is ranked No. 20.
SouthArk also has games against Heartland (Ill.) Community College, the defending national champion and No. 1 ranked team, as well as No. 3 Pearl River (Miss.) Community College next month in Mississippi.
SouthArk also will have a showdown against East Central (Miss.) Community College, which is ranked No. 10 and also qualified for the World Series last year.
“I’m excited about the non-conference,” Lester said. “We start the season with NorthArk, and they beat us last year. They’re D-III, but they went to the regional last year and almost went to their World Series. They’re really well-coached. Then we go to Bossier (Parish), who will be one of the more talented teams we play. They play in that tough Texas conference. They’ll have some real talent.
“The next weekend, we’ll go to East Central, who was in the World Series with us last year. A couple of weekends later, we’re going to Pearl River, and besides us playing Pearl River, we’re going to be playing the defending national champion, Heartland. We’re also going to be playing Parkland, who I think has made the second or third most World Series appearances.
“Non-conference wise, I think we’ve got the last two or three national champions on there. We’ve got a bunch of regional teams, a bunch of teams that have been to the World Series in the last couple of years. I’m really excited about testing our guys early. I think it will be good for them.
“I think by the time conference rolls around, I think we’ll be seasoned. We’ll see some of the better teams that we’ll play all year. I’m excited to get rolling early with some of the best.”