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UAB To Open Season Feb. 23 At Mississippi State

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The UAB baseball program has announced its 2010 schedule, which features 33 home games, seven opponents that played in the 2009 NCAA tournament and two that competed in last year’s College World Series.

The non-conference portion of the schedule is highlighted by a challenging trip to San Diego, Calif., for the San Diego State Invitational (March 11-14). The event features matchups against some of college baseball’s most successful programs in San Diego, Fresno State, San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton.

The only one of the four to not compete in last year’s NCAA tournament was San Diego, but the Toreros enter 2010 ranked as high as No. 14 in the national polls. Fullerton, a College World Series team last season, is one of the all-time great programs with four national championships, while Fresno State won the national

UAB head coach Brian Shoop

title in 2008.

Complete 2010 UAB Schedule

“We think it’s important to play great teams, and we’ve taken a trip like this every year,” UAB head coach Brian Shoop said. “We’re to the point now where we feel like we can compete at that level. It allows our guys the opportunity and forces them into the challenge of playing the best in the country. I think as long as you continue to improve mentally, you get better in every aspect by doing that.

“And that will certainly be good preparation for the remainder of our schedule, which is always tough. There are no easy wins out there.”

The Blazers’ early-season schedule also includes home weekend series with Ball State (Feb. 26-28), Eastern Illinois (March 5-7) and Western Illinois (March 19-21). Ball State won the Mid-American Conference West Division a season ago, and Eastern Illinois, the defending Ohio Valley Conference regular season champion, is receiving votes in the preseason Collegiate Baseball poll. UAB also has a home series later in the season against Manhattan (April 24-25), the defending Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season champion.

The Ball State and Eastern Illinois series are part of a season-long nine-game homestand that follows UAB’s season-opening midweek game Feb. 23 at SEC foe Mississippi State.

The Blazers get into Conference USA play March 26-28 with a home series against 2009 College World Series participant in Southern Mississippi. The home league slate also features series at Young Memorial Field against Marshall (April 9-11), Houston (April 30-May 2) and Tulane (May 14-16).

UAB will go on the road for conference series at UCF (April 2-3), defending regular-season champion East Carolina (April 16-18), Memphis (May 7-9) and perennial power Rice (May 20-22).

The 24-game league schedule builds toward the 2010 Conference USA Championship, slated for May 26-29 at Houston’s Cougar Field. The tournament has been reformatted to include the top six finishers in a pool play tournament. Previously, the event featured eight teams in a traditional double-elimination bracket.

The Blazers’ 2010 midweek slate is highlighted by home-and-home matchups with in-state rivals Alabama, Troy, Samford and Jacksonville State. For the fifth straight year, UAB will host Alabama at Regions Park, home of the Double-A Birmingham Barons, when the teams meet on March 31. UAB and Jacksonville State will meet four times in midweek games, twice in Birmingham and twice in Jacksonville.

(Release)

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Bruins Will Play 21 Of Their First 25 Games At Home

Belmont Head Coach David Jarvis

Shelby Park. It is the third time in four years that Belmont has faced a Missouri Valley Conference opponent to open the season. In last season’s home opener Belmont won two-of-three games against Illinois State, and in 2007 the Bruins opened up with two wins over Bradley.

Complete 2010 Belmont Schedule (PDF)

REGIONAL MATCHUPS
Belmont will trade home games with six area teams – Western Kentucky, Murray State, MTSU, Tennessee Tech, UT-Martin, and Austin Peay – which will make up a majority of the Bruins’ non-conference slate. The regional matchups begin at home with WKU (42-20) on Feb. 24. The Hilltoppers earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history after sharing the Sun Belt regular season title. Belmont will travel to WKU on April 7, to fulfill the two-game series.

OHIO VALLEY OPPPONENTS
Eleven of Belmont’s 28 non-conference games will be against teams from the Ohio Valley Conference, beginning with a three-game series against Eastern Illinois (36-14) from Feb. 26-28. After facing the 2009 regular season champions, the Bruins will travel to Murray State (34-21-1) on March 2 for the first of 21 road games during the season.

Belmont’s OVC tour resumes on March 23 when the Bruins host 2009 tournament champion Tennessee Tech (31-24-1) in Shelby Park. Senior Day is schedule for May 18 against Tennessee-Martin (20-31) – the last home game of the season. The Austin Peay series will take place on the road on April 20 and at home on the 28th.

SEC
Belmont will play two Southeastern Conference teams with Vanderbilt (37-27) on April 6 at Hawkins Field in Nashville, and Tennessee (26-29) on April 27 in Knoxville.

NEW BEGINNINGS
Belmont will face three new opponents in 2010 including Cleveland State, Eastern Michigan and Evansville. All games will be played at Shelby Park with Evansville opening the season on Feb. 19, Eastern Michigan (25-35) playing three games in two days from March 5-6, and a mid-week bout with Cleveland State (21-31) March 16 and 17.

The Bruins’ first substantial road trip will be a nine-game swing including a stop in Arkansas to play Arkansas-Little Rock for the first time since 1998.

CONFERENCE MATCHUPS
The Bruins open the conference season on the road against reigning Atlantic Sun Tournament Champion Jacksonville (37-22) on March 12. The Dolphins eliminated Belmont en route to their fourth A-Sun title and sixth berth in the NCAA Tournament.

The Bruins will play 27 conference games, three less than last season’s A-Sun slate which the Bruins finished with an even 15-15 record. All conference series are three games as most will occur over the span of two days, except Lipscomb and Florida Gulf Coast. ETSU is the lone conference member that the Bruins will not play in the regular season.

The baseball edition of the Battle of the Boulevard between arch-rival Lipscomb will be held in Shelby Park from March 19-21.

Belmont will conclude the regular season on road against Mercer on May 20 and 21.

The 2010 Atlantic Sun Championship will be held in Nashville at Lipscomb’s Dugan Field from May 25-29.

SHELBY IS HOME
Shelby Park will field all of Belmont’s 32 home games in 2009, ending nearly two decades of hosting teams at Greer Stadium – the home of the Nashville Sounds, Class AAA affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.

CHARLESTON, Ill. – Eighteen home games and a return to Florida for the annual spring break trip highlights Eastern Illinois baseball’s 2010 schedule, unveiled by head coach Jim Schmitz.

EIU Head Coach Jim Schmitz

three-game series at USF this year, EIU is expected to take on Army, Akron, Indiana and Ohio State in neutral-site games in Bradenton, Fla.

Complete 2010 Eastern Illinois Schedule

“It is another demanding schedule, playing 22 of our first 23 games on the road,” Schmitz said. “The NCAA moved the start of the season up one week, which allowed us to play another series on the road. We play seven teams that were ranked in the Top 100 of the RPI ranking in 2009. Our spring break is going to be our biggest test, as we play a three-game set with USF and then finish the trip with Indiana and Ohio State. The last few years we have made the schedule tougher in order to improve our RPI. It is the only way we can possibly get an at-large bid (to the NCAA Tournament).

The weekend of May 14-16, EIU is scheduled to host Indiana State and SIU Edwardsville. The Panthers will play ISU on May 14 and SIUE on May 15 and 16. The Sycamores and Cougars will also square off at Coaches Stadium at noon on Saturday, May 15.

Eastern is slated to open the season in Hammond, La., against Southeastern Louisiana for the third year in a row. The Panthers won two-of-three last year after getting swept in 2008.

Eastern last visited Belmont during the 2007 spring break trip and last played at UAB in 2003, participating in a four-team tournament.

For the third year in a row, EIU is scheduled to take on Missouri at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O’Fallon, Mo. The midweek game at the home of the Frontier League’s River City Rascals is expected to be played with wood bats.

(Release)

STARKVILLE, Miss. – A slate of 33 games at Dudy Noble Field featuring 17 different opponents highlights a challenge-filled 56-game Mississippi State University baseball schedule announced this week by MSU head baseball coach John Cohen.

MSU Head Coach John Cohen

“We feel like we’ve put together another very good baseball schedule, with half of our games against teams from the NCAA tournament field and 15 against NCAA Super Regional teams,” said Cohen.

“We’re excited about playing an additional game at Trustmark Park in Pearl this season and giving our great fan base in the Jackson area three week-night opportunities to see the Bulldogs play. “With an extra week added to the playing season, our schedule is spread out over 14 weeks, and now in most weeks we’ll be playing just one mid-week game.”

Complete 2010 Mississippi State Schedule (PDF)

MSU launches its 120th season of baseball and a string of 13 consecutive games at Dudy Noble Field Feb. 19-21 with a three-game series against first-time opponent and Atlantic 10 Conference runner-up Rhode Island. State also hosts Southeastern Louisiana in a three-game weekend series (Feb. 26-28) and closes out the home stand with the second annual BankFirst Baseball Challenge (Mar. 5-7). The Bulldogs play two games each against Michigan State of the Big 10 Conference and Ohio Valley Conference foe Southeast Missouri State, coached by former Bulldog assistant Mark Hogan, in the three-day, six-game event.

The Bulldogs begin their 30-game SEC schedule March 19-21 in Gainesville, Fla., with a three-game series at Florida. State’s 15-game home SEC slate for 2010 includes series against SEC Western Division rivals Arkansas and Ole Miss and SEC East teams Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. The MSU-UT series (Apr. 16-18) will be part of the schedule for Mississippi State’s annual spring homecoming, Super Bulldog Weekend.

Mississippi State’s non-conference home schedule also includes single midweek contests against instate SWAC foes Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State along with Memphis, Northwestern State, South Alabama, UAB, and Western Kentucky.

State makes a program-first trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, for its initial road competition of the 2010 season. The Bulldogs square off against Big 12 Conference power Oklahoma, UCLA of the Pac-10 Conference and tournament host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the fifth annual Whataburger Classic (Mar. 12-14). The event is held at Whataburger Field, the 5,000-seat home of the Corpus Christi Hooks, the Houston Astros’ Class AA Texas League affiliate.

The Bulldogs are scheduled to make three mid-week appearances at Trustmark Park in Pearl, Miss., in the coming season. MSU is the designated home team against Ole Miss in the fourth annual Governor’s Cup game (Mar. 30) at Trustmark Park, and later takes on Jackson State (May 4) and Southern Miss (May 5) at the home of the Atlanta Braves‘ Class AA Southern League affiliate.

Nine of MSU’s 26 baseball opponents in 2010 are newcomers to the MSU schedule, including season-opening foe Rhode Island and SEC opening weekend opponent Florida, which replaces Kentucky on the Bulldogs’ SEC league schedule in 2010.

State closes out its regular season schedule in Baton Rouge, La., with a Thursday-Friday-Saturday series against defending NCAA national champion LSU (May 20-22).

The 2010 SEC Baseball Tournament is set May 26-30 at Regions Park in Hoover, Ala., while the NCAA baseball tournament begins competition June 4 at 16 regional sites.

(Release)