Jags Announce Baseball Schedule, Will Host Alabama, Auburn, Miss. State
The University of South Alabama baseball program released their 2015 schedule which includes nine NCAA Regional and two Super Regional participants from last season.
A whopping 16 of the first 17 games of the season will be played at Eddie Stanky Field which begins with a three-game season-opening series against New Orleans February 13-15. On February 17 the Jaguars will host Auburn. They will then host Maryland, a 2014 Super Regional participant, and Arkansas who advanced to the championship game of the NCAA Charlottesville Regional last year as well as Central Florida for a weekend tournament February 20-22.
Their only road game in February will be on February 24 when they travel to Montgomery to play Alabama State in a midweek game. USA returns home to host Brown (February 27-March 1) in four games over three days. Then they host Southerm Miss on March 3 before hosing Arkansas-Little Rock on March 6-8 to open their Sun Belt conference schedule.
Other games of note throughout the season are Southeastern Louisiana on March 10 and Alabama State March 17 in Mobile. The Jags will also host Lafayette runner-up Mississippi State on March 31 and Jackson State on April 1.
The full schedule can be found here.
“You obviously want to try to put together the best schedule you can,” South Alabama head baseball coach Mark Calvi said. “It used to be that 40 wins was the benchmark to get into the Regionals, but now there are teams with 40 or more wins that get left out because their RPI is lower than a team with fewer wins. We definitely don’t want to be left out. It’s RPI-driven first and foremost. We have our sights set on winning the league every year, and we want our guys ready for the competition they will play in the postseason so they will have seen that caliber of a team consistently throughout the year. It’s a tough schedule, but we feel good with it. There’s not a lot of wiggle room, but it creates excitement within our program and with the fans. It’s a great home slate; we’re excited about it.”
“I think the conference is very strong,” Calvi said about the Sun Belt. “We played Georgia Southern back when I was at South Carolina. They are a pretty consistent Regional team, and they were in a tough league in the Southern Conference. They are a very good team, and they have an experienced coaching staff. They definitely add some strength to the league. Those (GSU and Appalachain State) are two very competitive programs. I like the league. We want to make this a three or four-team league in regard to the postseason. I think it is as competitive as ever, but we’ll see.”
The 2015 Sun Belt Conference Championship will be held May 20-24 in Troy, Alabama.