After a solid 2022 campaign under head coach Brad Sanfilippo, the San Jose State baseball team heads into the 2023 season with a solid outlook.
Last year, the Spartans ended their season with an 30-29 record, their best season since 2011 when they finished with a 35-26 record. SJSU lost in the 2022 Mountain West Championship game to Air Force 8-3.
“It's always a little bit of a disappointment when you end and you kind of look at where your shortcomings were, and then you gotta get to work . . . I felt like we matched up with the Air Force pretty well,” said Sanfilippo during baseball media day on Tuesday.
Though they fell short, the Spartans are looking ahead for a better outcome this season.
SJSU will start the 2023 season with a three-game series with Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, but it will play its next 15 games at home.
One of the key matchups during that stretch will be against rival Fresno State.
“We start conference in week three, we'll have Fresno here in the third week of the season . . . we'll get nine games real quick so that we can kind of figure out who we are before we kick off against a really quality Fresno team,” Sanfilippo said.
The Spartans went up against the Fresno Bulldogs three times last season and pulled out two of the three wins in that series.
This season, SJSU and Fresno State will face each other for a total of six times with three games in San Jose and three in Fresno.
Sanfilippo said the Bulldogs have good depth in their roster and will be a competitive opponent in the Mountain West.
With many players returning from last season, sophomore Charles McAdoo will play a key role in the Spartans’ lineup.
McAdoo led the team with 23 doubles, had the second best batting average on the team with .345 and hit a career-high 12 home runs last season.
“I have something to prove, but this entire team has something to prove just based on where we ended up last year,” McAdoo said. “And I know we could go further than we did last year.”
He was recently named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Preseason All-American First Team and to the Collegiate Baseball Preseason All-American First Team.
Junior left-handed pitcher Ethan Ross is also returning for the Spartans. Ross led the team in strikeouts in 2022 with 63 and started 15 games.
Despite making it to the Mountain West Championship last season, the Spartans have yet to hold the Mountain West title since joining the conference in 2013.
The last time the Spartans made it to the National Collegiate Athletic Association World Series was in 2000.
“San Jose State hasn't won so that certainly is a goal, but playing in a regional is the goal . . . There were certainly some progress and I was proud of our effort last year but not happy with not finishing them off [Air Force,]” Ross said.
The Spartans’ season is scheduled to begin on Feb. 17 at 6 p.m., at Page Stadium in Los Angeles against Loyola Marymount. SJSU will have its home opener against California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo on Feb. 20 at 1:05 p.m. at Excite Ballpark, in San Jose.
