WAC baseball elects to retain scheduling format

By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

After hearing various scheduling proposals in baseball, the Western Athletic Conference has decided that status quo is best.

Conference athletic directors agreed to retain the home-and-home format during a meeting in Phoenix last weekend.

"Strength of schedule plays a big part of our conference," said UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida, who attended the meeting. "Baseball is a sport I think the WAC is very competitive with the rest of the nation with (No. 2) Rice, San Jose State, and there's history with Fresno State and Hawai'i, and Nevada is getting better. In the best interest of baseball, it was best to stay in the format we had."

One of the concerns that brought the proposals was the cost of travel because WAC baseball spans from Hawai'i to Louisiana. Traveling is hardest on UH because — unlike the other teams — it has to cross the Pacific Ocean for all of its road games.

Still, Yoshida said, the present format "was our best option."

Under the current schedule, each team plays a three-game series against other WAC teams at home and on the road for a 30-game schedule.

There were proposals for an unbalanced schedule in which some teams would play others twice while playing the remaining teams once. However, in such a format, a team having to play powerhouse Rice twice would be at a disadvantage.

There also were proposals to bring in teams as associate members. But the quality of those teams might have diluted the WAC's strength of scheduling, a factor in determining at-large bids for NCAA regionals. The WAC is ranked ninth among the 30 Division I conferences by Baseball America.

NOTE: UH coach Mike Trapasso left late Monday night to work on recruiting. He will meet the team in San Jose. The Rainbows leave this morning, and open a three-game series with the Spartans on Friday.