College baseball: Alabama State to tackle defending NCAA champs

MONTGOMERY, Alabama  --  Alabama State’s baseball team won 20 games for the first time in 10 years last season under first-year coach Mervyl Melendez and tied for second in the Southwestern Athletic Conference East Division race.

So what does Melendez do for an encore? How about scheduling a three-game series with defending national champion Arizona?

The Hornets opened baseball practice on Friday with an eye toward playing in Major League Baseball’s Urban Invitational for the second consecutive year and a trip to Tucson, Ariz., to play the Wildcats in a three-game series in late April.

“If you want to get to the promised land, you have to get through some obstacles and some difficult situations,” Melendez said. “Going to play Arizona is not going to be easy, but in order for us to become the team that I believe we can be, and the program I believe we can be, we’ve got to play good teams. And it doesn’t get bigger than playing the defending national champions.”

The trip to Hi Corbett Field to play the Wildcats is ...

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