Baseball is back on the diamond

ORANGE, Calif. – The Chapman baseball team kicks off the 2022 season and home schedule Fri., Feb 18 and will host the Whittier Poets at Hart Park in a 2:30 p.m. matchup. The team springs back into action after a shortened 2019-20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Only four Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) teams were able to play in the 2020-21 season. Chapman, one of the four, earned the top seed in the SCIAC Postseason Tournament and won its semifinal contest against the Bulldogs, 7-6 (10 innings.) followed by back-to-back victories over Cal Lutheran (5-2 and 8-2) to win the double-elimination tournament.

The Panthers earned the SCIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship and fell 4-3 to St. Thomas (Minn.) in the Collegeville, Minn. Regional final.

Chapman will see some key returning talent taking the field this spring alongside some promising additions to the squad. Senior catcher and San Francisco native Cooper Foard returns the diamond. In 2020 Foard appeared in nine games for the Panthers as a corner outfielder and designated hitter. He hit .348 with 6 RBI and stole four bases on the season.

During the 2021 season Foard appeared in 21 games behind the plate for Chapman and tallied 84 at-bats and hit .333 with a .536 slugging percentage. He racked up 17 runs, 28 hits and six doubles alongside his three home runs and 23 RBI

Another key returner for the Panthers is junior right handed pitcher Grant Manning. In 2020 Manning appeared in five games for Chapman out of the bullpen in his rookie debut. He pitched 7.1 innings allowing six earned, he struck out eight while only walking one.

In the 2021 season Manning started five games for the Panthers and appeared in three out of the bullpen tallying a 2-0 record. In his 32 innings pitched he served up 31 strikeouts averaging 8.72 strikeouts per nine innings. He finished the season with a 3.09 ERA.

All nine SCIAC institutions will return to play in the 2021-22 season, five teams returning for the first time since 2019-20. SCIAC play is slated to begin the week of February 25-27 but the Panthers will kick off their conference schedule with weekend of March 4-6 with a 2:30 p.m. home game against the Stags on March 4 and a 11:00 a.m./2:30 p.m. doubleheader on the road at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on March 5.