CARBONDALE, Ill. – Southern Illinois baseball head coach Lance Rhodes announced the team’s 2023 campaign on Tuesday. The Salukis will host 29 games at Itchy Jones Stadium, seven home weekend series, including a home series with SEC foe Kentucky.
The Salukis will play 20 games against RPI top-100 teams from the 2022 season as well as six games against Power-5 opponents.
“I’m excited about the schedule we were able to put together this season. It will challenge us during nonconference and help us prepare for MVC play,” Rhodes noted. “Overall, our goal was to play a competitive schedule to help us achieve the best possible RPI heading into the postseason, and I think we have done that.”
Southern begins the season with seven-straight games on the road starting with a series at Wofford (Feb. 17-19), a single game at Austin Peay (Feb. 21), before wrapping up the stretch at Jacksonville State (Feb. 24-26) with a weekend series.
Fans will get their first glimpse of the team at Itchy Jones Stadium on Feb. 28 when SIU plays host to Saint Louis in a midweek tilt. Ohio comes to town Mar. 3-5 for a weekend series before a midweek matchup with SIU Edwardsville on Mar. 7.
The Salukis will play host to Kentucky Mar. 10-12 to end an eight-game homestand. The meeting will mark the second time in program history that UK has made the trek to Carbondale for a three-game series (Apr. 25-26, 1980).
Following a Tuesday game at UT Martin, the Salukis will travel to Champaign for a weekend series with the Fighting Illini (Mar. 14-17) before hosting Western Illinois Mar. 21.
The Salukis open MVC play at home against Illinois-Chicago (Mar. 24-26) and host four other Valley opponents during the season. SIU hosts Belmont (Apr. 6-8), Evansville (Apr. 14-16), Illinois State (Apr. 28-30) and Missouri State (May 12-14) for Senior Weekend.
One of the most popular figures in Saluki baseball history – and the program’s second-winningest coach – Dan Callahan, will have his No. 37 jersey retired on April 15 as part of Alumni Weekend.
Southern will make trips to Bradley (Mar. 31-Apr. 2), Indiana State (Apr. 21-23), Valparaiso (May 5-7) and Murray State (May 18-20) during conference action before returning to Terre Haute for the 2023 MVC Tournament May 24-27.
Mixed into conference play SIU will host UT Martin (Mar. 28), Lindenwood (Apr. 4), Southeast Missouri (Apr. 11), Austin Peay (Apr. 18) and Southern Indiana (May 2) in midweek action. The team also returns single games at Southeast Missouri (Apr. 25) and SIU Edwardsville (May 9).
