On Thursday, MT baseball coach Jim McGuire announced the upcoming Blue Raider spring schedule, including eight NCAA tournament teams, 30 Conference USA matchups and 27 home games at Reese Smith Field.
The season begins Friday, February 13 as the team travels to Jacksonville, Florida for a three-game weekend series. The home opener is scheduled for the following Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 3 p.m. against Lipscomb.
Their first home stand is a weekend series (February 20-22) against Valparaiso, Ohio and Western Illinois. The team travels west to Cookeville, Tennessee for the Battle of 840 against Tennessee Tech.
The Blue Raiders then travel to Louisiana for a series in New Orleans (Feburary 27 – March 1). The next week, the team moves to Knoxville to take on the University of Tennessee March 3.
On March 6-8, MTSU hosts Big Ten member Iowa for a weekend series, and will follow that up by taking on Memphis March 10 and 11.
That weekend they open up their tough C-USA schedule with a three game series against UAB (March 13-15).
The Blue Raiders’ C-USA schedule includes ten 3-game series’ against: Florida Atlantic (March 20-22), Old Dominion (March 27-29), Rice (April 3-5), Louisiana Tech (April 10-12), Charlotte (April 17-19), Marshall (April 24-26), Western Kentucky (May 1-3), UTSA (May 8-10), Southern Miss (May 14-16).
The C-USA Championships begin May 20-24.
The team also takes on NCAA defending champion Vanderbilt twice this season. The first is scheduled to take place in Murfreesboro on March 24 at 6 p.m. The second meeting is scheduled to be at Vanderbilt nearly a month later on April 21 at 6:30 p.m.
The Blue Raiders also have two other in-state matchups against rivals Belmont (March 17) and Austin Peay (March 31).
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To contact sports editor Connor Grott, email sports@mtsusidelines.com.
