CHICAGO (Feb. 15, 2024) – The UIC baseball team (0-0, 0-0 MVC) is set to open the 2024 season this weekend, as it travels down to Corpus Christi, Texas for a three-game series against Big 12-foe Kansas (0-0, 0-0 BIG 12) beginning Friday afternoon.
 
UIC (0-0, 0-0 MVC) vs. Kansas (0-0, 0-0 BIG 12) (Neutral Site)
Feb. 16-18
Whataburger Field | Corpus Christi, Texas (Home of the Corpus Christi Hooks – AA Affiliate of the Houston Astros)
 
Game 1
Friday, Feb. 16
3:00 p.m. CT
FloSports ($)
Live Stats
 
Game 2
Saturday, Feb. 17
1:00 p.m. CT
FloSports ($)
Live Stats
 
Game 3
Sunday, Feb. 18
12:00 p.m. CT
FloSports ($)
Live Stats
 
COACH'S COMMENTS
 
 
FIRST PITCH
The Flames open up the 2024 season with two straight weekends in the Lone Star state, as UIC opens the campaign with a three-game set against Kansas, beginning Friday afternoon in Corpus Christi. Each of the three games in the series can be seen live with a subscription to FloSports, and live stats are also available free of charge via uicflames.com.
 
In its first season of competition in the Missouri Valley Conference in 2023, the UIC baseball team finished the season with 28 wins. It was the Flames' 22^nd consecutive season with 20 or more wins and fifth in a row with at least 28 wins, excluding the 2020 season that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Third baseman Charlie Szykowny (Palos Heights, Ill./Wisconsin-Stout) was named ABCA Second Team All-Region before being drafted in the ninth round of the 2023 Major League Baseball Draft by the San Francisco Giants. Catcher Cole Conn (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East) was also selected in the 2023 MLB Draft, a 12^th round selection by the Oakland Athletics after he had been named to the 2023 MVC All-Tournament Team.
 
UIC earned the sixth seed in the 2023 Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Championship, and defeated fifth-seeded Belmont in each team's first-ever MVC Championship game, before falling in consecutive games to the top two seeded teams in Indiana State and Missouri State.
 
NOT-SO-FAMILIAR FACES
This year's Flames team will have a different look on the diamond than a year ago, as 15 new faces are set to make their UIC debut in 2024. Highlighting this new class of Flames is graduate transfer outfielder Kendall Ewell (Calumet City, Ill./Marist). Ewell was a Golden Spikes Award National Semifinalist at Eastern Kentucky in 2022. He was drafted out of high school by the Colorado Rockies in 2019, and batted .361 with 14 home runs in 2022 with the Colonels.
 
Right-handed pitcher Dylan White (Danville, Calif./De La Salle) comes to the South Loop as a graduate transfer, after playing four seasons at the University of Chicago. White made 24 career starts for the Maroons in his final three seasons, amassing a 9-6 career record, and averaging over a strikeout per inning pitched in 133 innings.
 
FANTASTIC FIELDING
UIC returns several familiar faces to a defense that ranked second in the Missouri Valley Conference in 2023 in terms of fielding percentage, including infielders Rayth Petersen (Barrington, Ill./Barrington), Zane Zielinski (Chicago, Ill./Lake View), and Ryan Nagelbach (Deerfield, Ill,/Deerfield) who combined for only seven errors last season. The Flames finished the season ranked 16^th in the NCAA in fielding percentage last season (.980), and will carry a pitching and defensive focus into the 2024 campaign.
 
SCOUTING THE JAYHAWKS
The Jayhawks, under second-year head coach Dan Fitzgerald, doubled their conference win total in 2023, and bested their overall win total from 2022 by five games. Kansas qualified for the Big 12 tournament in 2023, where they took down nationally ranked (#13) Texas before being eliminated by eventual Big 12 champion TCU, and Kansas State on consecutive days. The Jayhawks boast the ninth-ranked transfer class in 2024 (D1Baseball.com) and had two returning players named to the Preseason All-Big 12 Baseball Team in January.
 
For more information on UIC Athletics and UIC baseball, visit UICFlames.com. Fans can also follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_Baseball and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_baseball and @uicflames).