Lawrenceville – The Sunbelt Baseball League announced its schedule for the 2021 season Monday morning.

Opening Day is on June 7 as the Sunbelt makes its return this summer after the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  June 7 also marks the Sunbelt debut for the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots and the Waleska Wild Things, who join the league as its seventh and eighth teams respectively.

“We are really looking forward to the 2021 season,” said Sunbelt commissioner Todd Pratt.  “After cancelling the season last year, we are excited to get back to baseball.  We’re especially excited for the addition of the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots and the Waleska Wild Things.  It looks like a great schedule set up, and we are really excited.”

Each team will play 28 games and face each other four times during the regular season.  The two-time defending champion Brookhaven Bucks open their quest for a third-straight title at home against their rivals, the Marietta Patriots, who will play their first game under the leadership of owner Terry Johnson and head coach Paul Fletcher.  The Gwinnett Astros and the Atlanta Crackers open their seasons at Peachtree Ridge High School in a rematch of the 2019 Sunbelt Semi-Finals.

The Chatt-a-Hoots and Wild Things open their inaugural seasons on the road as Columbus travels to Legion Field to take on the Alpharetta Aviators, and Waleska faces the Gainesville Braves at Ivey Watson Field.  Then on June 9, the Wild Things face the Braves again, this time at Reinhardt University for their home opener before traveling to Golden Park to face the Chatt-a-Hoots in their home debut.

The Patriots and the Aviators will face each other at Legion Field on June 11 as both teams look to return to the Sunbelt playoffs after missing out in 2019.  The Bucks and the Astros face off at Peachtree Ridge High School on June 21 in a rematch of the 2019 Sunbelt Championship. 

Following the All-Star break from July 11-15, each team will make their push for the postseason.  The top six teams in the final standings at the end of the regular season will advance to the playoffs.  The third and sixth seeds and the fourth and fifth seeds will face each other in a one game playoff on July 30.  The winners of those games advance to the semi-finals for a best-of-three series against the top two seeds from July 30-August 3.  The winner of those series will advance to the Sunbelt Championship for another best-of-three series starting August 5 with the winner being crowned Sunbelt Champion.

The Sunbelt Summer Baseball League has provided premier summer baseball for the Southeast since 2005.  For everything around the Sunbelt League go online to sunbeltleague.com for news, scores, broadcast information, and much more and on Facebook and Twitter @sunbeltbaseball and Instagram @sunbeltleague.

Full Schedules:

Alpharetta Aviators

Atlanta Crackers

Brookhaven Bucks

Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots

Gainesville Braves

Gwinnett Astros

Marietta Patriots

Waleska Wild Things