KEVIN B. KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Freshman pitcher Lance Sewell delivers a pitch during the alumni baseball game at Sancet Stadium Sunday. The Wildcats host New Mexico Friday afternoon in the first of a three-game series.

The Arizona baseball team returns to the diamond this weekend for its first action since playing in the College World Series in June.

The No. 12 Wildcats host New Mexico in a season-opening, three-game series starting this afternoon at 4 at Sancet Stadium. The series continues tomorrow at 2 p.m. and concludes Sunday at noon.

Arizona junior ace John Meloan, who went 10-0 with a 4.66 ERA last year, will start the opener against Jason Fernandez (7-5, 5.27).

Junior Kevin Guyette (6-8, 6.45) battles Karsten Gaarder on Saturday, and freshman David Coulon will make his first career start Sunday against Darren Coltrinari (1-3, 13.94).

After months of practice and intrasquad scrimmages, Guyette said he's ready for the season to begin.

"I've honestly been ready ever since Omaha ended for the season to get going," he said. "You practice, practice, practice, and finally the games are going to start showing up."

"It's going to be exciting to get an enemy in that other dugout and see some different colors," he said.

Arizona enters the match against the Lobos having won 19 consecutive games against New Mexico, the last two coming in UA head coach Andy Lopez's first series with the team in 2003. The Wildcats' dominance extends to the all-time series in which they hold a 152-28 (.844) advantage against their former Western Athletics Conference opponent, whom they have played more times than any non-conference foe.

"Honestly, our game plan is just to beat the game and play the game, similar to golf," Guyette said. "The enemy doesn't really matter that much as long as we play well as a team. I think that we're probably a little more talented than they are, and as long as we play our game, we'll be fine."

The Lobos return Fernandez, a control pitcher who led the team in wins and innings pitched last year, and first baseman David Stovall, who landed one of 58 spots on list for the Wallace Watch Award, given to college baseball's top player. Last season Stovall hit .347 with 12 home runs and 34 RBI, on his way to a place on Collegiate Baseball's Freshman All-America team and the All-Mountain West Conference squad.

Lopez said he hopes his team puts pitching, hitting and defense together during this series. He also plans to use this weekend as well as the rest of this month to figure out the makeup of his team.

"February is a month where you're still testing a lot of things, you're still working on a lot of things, figuring out a lot of things in terms of what needs to be done, who's in middle relief, who's a set-up guy," Lopez said. "There's just a lot of questions that need to be answered in February (because) you're trying to get ready for the Pac-10 season."

On Sunday Coulon will make his bid to solidify the back end of the rotation behind Meloan and Guyette. The southpaw will not only follow these veterans in the rotation but will also be guided on how to be successful at the college level.

"I've kind of been there, done that, so I'll tell him how it is," Guyette said. "He's a mature freshman, so he can handle it fine. He's been throwing for 10 years of his life and he knows what it's like. We're still playing the basic game of baseball whether it's high school or college."

The staff will also be helped by an offense that returns seven starters from last season, when the Wildcats hit .305 and averaged 6.9 runs and 10.7 hits per game. Headlining the lineup will be last year's batting champion, junior Trevor Crowe (.350 average), and Arizona's home run and RBI leader junior Jordan Brown (13 HR, 57 RBI).

With so many returning players, sophomore closer Mark Melancon (6-4, 4.33 ERA, three saves in UA freshman-record 29 appearances) said he looks forward to a successful weekend.

"My expectations are to be 3-0 afterwards," he said. "I think that's we're all thinking. But New Mexico is really good, and we have to play our game."