MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Middle Tennessee head baseball coach Steve Peterson announced Wednesday the 2010 schedule for his defending Sun Belt Conference champion Blue Raiders.
The 2010 campaign is very attractive but includes an added bonus. The Blue Raiders will host the Sun Belt Conference Championships on May 26-29 for the first time in school history. It marks the first time Middle Tennessee has hosted a postseason conference tournament since 1997 (Ohio Valley).
Middle Tennessee will play a total of 27 home games, including a three-game series with a strong Ohio University team to open the home season on February 26-27-28. The Blue Raiders will officially open the season a week earlier with a trio of games at Memphis on February 19-20-21.
"With the exception of Ohio University, our schedule looks much like it has in recent years," noted Peterson. "It will feature a lot of familiar foes, and have a lot of road games close by that our fans can follow us to."
Tennessee and Vanderbilt are home-and-home foes once again, as are Austin Peay, Belmont, David Lipscomb and Tennessee Tech.
Middle Tennessee will play Southern Illinois in multi-game series' home and away, and will also have a three-game road trip to Jacksonville State in early March.
"We have a tough non-conference slate, as we always try to do, to prepare us for conference play," said Peterson. "Tennessee was very good at the end of the season last year, and Vandy is being touted as perhaps having the best pitching staff in the country. Tennessee Tech made the NCAA tournament last year, and Southern Illinois and Jacksonville State are always a tough series for us."
The 56-game schedule will include 18 games against Sun Belt Conference foes, beginning with a three-game home stand against Louisiana-Monroe March 12-13-14. It will close the regular season with what has become the traditional season-ending series with Western Kentucky.
Sunday, April 25th, is tentatively set as Little League Day at Reese Smith Field. Middle Tennessee will host SBC foe Arkansas-Little Rock on that day.
Coach Peterson noted that the very first thing on the 2010 schedule is the annual Groundhog Day Luncheon on February 2nd.
"Tickets for that event sold out early last year, so folks need to be planning for that now," reminded Peterson.
Click here for complete 2010 Schedule
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