Baseball Opens 2025 Season, Hawkins Era with Trips to Sam Houston and UCA

Friday, February 14

Huntsville, Texas

6:30 p.m.

Missouri State University

Sam Houston

Baseball Opens 2025 Season, Hawkins Era with Trips to Sam Houston and UCA

February 12, 2025 | Baseball

Live Stats (Sam Houston)Live Stats (UCA)Listen ESPN+ (Feb. 14)ESPN+ (Feb. 18)Game Notes

By: MSU Athletics Communications

Missouri State at Sam Houston/UCA
Sam Houston Game 1	Feb. 14, 6:30 p.m. Don Sanders Stadium Hunstville, Texas ESPN+ \| Live Stats \| Listen Radio: KBFL 96.9FM/1060 AM
Sam Houston Game 2	Feb. 15, 6 p.m. Don Sanders Stadium Hunstville, Texas Live Stats \| Listen Radio: KBFL 96.9FM/1060 AM
Sam Houston Game 3	Feb. 16, 12 p.m. Don Sanders Stadium Hunstville, Texas Live Stats \| Listen
Central Arkansas	Feb. 18, 3 p.m. Bear Stadium Conway, Ark. ESPN+ \| Live Stats \| Listen Radio: KBFL 96.9FM/1060 AM
Missouri State	Game Notes Baseball Home Page
Sam Houston	Baseball Home Page
Central Arkansas	Baseball Home Page

Starting 9
1) Missouri State begins the 2025 season under new head coach Joey Hawkins this weekend with a trip to Sam Houston to face the Bearkats in a three-game series. MoState's 62nd varsity season begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14, with the remainder of the series at 6 p.m. Saturday and 12 p.m. Sunday. The Bears continue their season-opening eight-game road trip Tuesday with a 3 p.m. game at Central Arkansas.

2) Hawkins, who played for the Bears from 2012-15 and served as assistant coach from 2022-24, is just the third head coach in program history. Bill Rowe managed the Bears from 1964-82 before becoming the school's athletic director. Keith Guttin, who played for MSU under Rowe, succeeded him in 1983 before retiring after the 2024 campaign.
In their respective debuts, Rowe went 6-12 overall and lost 5-3 at Arkansas State on March 14, 1964, in his first game. Guttin's first season was also MSU's first as a Division I program. The Bears won his debut 8-2 over Indiana State at home on March 5, 1983, and went 32-11 overall while leading the nation with a .367 batting average.

3) MSU is looking for its 10th opening day win in its last 13 tries Friday. The Bears are 39-22 in season openers and have gone a combined 23-10 while averaging 7.4 runs per outing on opening weekend since 2014.

4) The Bears have homered in 110 of the last 131 games, and rank 13th nationally with 313 long balls since the beginning of the 2022 season, when Hawkins took over as hitting coach. MoState's 114 homers last season ranked second in school and fourth in MVC history.

5) The Bears bring back 74 long balls from 2024, led by Zack Stewart (21), Caden Bogenpohl (20), Nick Rodriguez (14) and Taeg Gollert (10). In fact, the current roster has blasted a combined 113 home runs for the Bears in their careers.

6) Four former Freshman All-Americans are on the MSU roster. Nick Rodriguez received the honor in 2022 at Charleston Southern, Garrett Ferguson and Zack Stewart each landed on multiple such teams for MSU in 2023, and Caden Bogenpohl did the same last year for the Bears.

7) Missouri State went 23-34 last season and finished eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference with an 11-16 league mark. The offense led the league with 114 home runs and five Bears earned all-conference honors, and MoState was plus-25 in run differential for the full season and plus-41 across 27 Valley games.

8) D1Baseball tabbed the Bears as the favorite to win the MVC this season, with sophomore Caden Bogenpohl as its preseason player of the year and Michael Yusypchuk as its freshman of the year. The MVC will release its preseason poll and all-conference teams on March 17 entering the first weekend of league play.

9) The 2025 season will be Missouri State's 35th and final year in the MVC. The university accepted an invitation to Conference USA on May 10, 2024, and will officially join that league on July 1, 2025. The baseball Bears own the most league wins (471) and highest MVC winning percentage (.581) of any current league school with six regular season championships and five tournament titles in 34 seasons.