For a variety of reasons, the tried-and-true statement of pitching and defense wins baseball games should apply greatly to the 2011 Canisius College baseball team.

From the 2010 MAAC regular-season championship team, the Golden Griffins lose four of their top six hitters from a group that went 39-21 and 19-5 in the MAAC. Combine that with losing their 3-4-5 hitters after the 2009 season, and the Golden Griffins have graduated a lot of production from their offense the last two seasons.

However, the Griffs return two of their three starting pitchers from the weekend rotation, their top two mid-week starters, two relievers from the back-end of the bullpen as well as three-fourths of the starting infield.

And then there's the biggest story in college baseball this offseason - the bats. Effective Jan. 1, a new bat standard went into effect with the goal of making non-wood bats meet a standard so they perform comparable to wood bats.

For the Golden Griffins, even with all of those changes, not much has changed for seventh-year coach Mike McRae.

"We should be very good defensively. We can cover a lot of ground in the outfield and will make the plays in the infield," McRae said. "The bats are such an unknown that no one knows how they will affect the game. Everyone is talking about them, but we don't know.

"It doesn't change our preparation. We're going to throw strikes, make plays and run the bases."

That preparation doesn't need to change very much after winning 116 games the past three years - the most by any team in the Northeast or Midwest. Canisius is also the only team in the Northeast to win 35 games or more each of the last three seasons and ranks 29^th nationally with the 116 wins.

In the past, the apparent strength of this team has been its offense, which has put up some gaudy numbers the last three seasons and shattered the record books. However, the evolution of the team is turning toward its depth on the mound - quality depth.

"We have a lot of very good arms that provide a lot of different looks to our opponents," McRae said. "I feel we have a lot of depth on the mound, going 10 or 11 deep, and I'm pretty confident in that number being not just arms, but quality arms we can throw at our opponents."

Schedule

The Golden Griffins will play a challenging non-conference schedule to get them ready for conference play. It starts for the second consecutive season with a neutral-site series at the USA Baseball Complex in North Carolina against Toledo and Creighton. Toledo was picked to finish second in the West Division in the Mid-American Conference after winning 34 games last season while Creighton was picked fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference after finishing second in the country in fielding percentage last season.

The Golden Griffins will then play two series against teams from some of the top conferences in the country, playing at SEC member Tennessee and at ACC member Maryland. The Griffs travel to Dayton for the Flyer Classic to face the host Dayton Flyers as well as Wright State and Oakland. Dayton was picked third in the Atlantic 10 while Wright State is the preseason favorite in the Horizon League after winning the regular-season title last year. On its Spring Break trip, Canisius will play Big East member West Virginia as well as Morehead State and its second SEC opponent of the year in Kentucky. During its bye weekend in conference play, Canisius takes on George Washington.

Scattered throughout the season are non-conference games against Buffalo, Le Moyne, Youngstown State and St. Bonaventure, including the home opener at the Demske Sports Complex against the Bonnies on Tuesday, March 29.

"I feel this is our toughest non-conference schedule in years," McRae said. "We are playing a lot of tough teams from outside our area and region. We can't take any days off."

Canisius starts defense of its 2010 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season title at Iona College on March 26-27, before returning home to host Marist the following weekend. The Griffs will host Saint Peter's before playing three straight series on the road - at Manhattan, Rider and Siena. Each of those three teams was picked to finish in the top half of the conference. The Griffs will wrap up the regular season with series against Fairfield and Niagara at the Demske Sports Complex, where Canisius has won 36 of its last 45 MAAC home games.

If they can qualify for the postseason for the fifth consecutive season, the Griffs will be in search of their first postseason championship. The MAAC Championship returns to Waterfront Park in Trenton, N.J. after a one-year hiatus. Canisius has advanced to the championship round in each of the last two years, only to come up short against Marist in 2009 and Rider in 2010.

"You hope it leaves a bitter taste in their mouths. If the memory is still there, you want your team to use it as the right motivation moving forward" McRae said. "As we've seen the past few years, once you get to the MAAC Championship, nobody knows what will happen as each of those four teams can get to the NCAA Tournament."