FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
35 Home Games highlight Clemson's 2009 Schedule
Clemson, SC – Thirty-five home games, 30 games against 2008 NCAA Tournament teams, and two games at Fluor Field in Greenville, SC highlight Clemson’s 56-game, 2009 regular-season baseball schedule, released Thursday. A change from previous season’s schedules is a 6:30 PM start time for all but one of Clemson’s 20 home night games.
Thirty of Clemson’s 56 regular-season contests (54 percent) will be against teams that participated in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Fifteen of the 26 non-conference matchups will be against 2008 NCAA Tourney teams, games against South Carolina (4), Charlotte (3), UNC Wilmington (3), Elon (2), Georgia (2), and Coastal Carolina (1). The Tigers will face conference foes Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), North Carolina, and N.C. State, also teams that played in the 2008 NCAA Tourney. For the second year in a row, Clemson will not face Virginia during the regular season.
Clemson’s early ACC slate will be a difficult one, as the Tigers will open up league play at North Carolina from March 6-8. After a home series against Wake Forest the following weekend, the Tigers will be on the road for back-to-back series at Florida State and Boston College. Clemson also has road ACC series at Virginia Tech and N.C. State along with home ACC series against Duke, Miami (FL), Georgia Tech, and Maryland.
The Tigers will open the season with a three-game home series against Charlotte from February 20-22. After a midweek home game against Wofford, the Tigers will play a home-and-home weekend series against South Carolina. On February 28, the Tigers will host South Carolina, then the following day, they will travel to Columbia.
After a Wednesday home game against UNC Asheville, Clemson will travel to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina in both team’s ACC opener. Of Clemson’s first 10 games, eight will be against teams that played in the 2008 NCAA Tourney.
Michigan State will visit Tigertown on March 10 in the first meeting between the two since 1958. Clemson’s last win in the series came in the 1958 season-opener, Bill Wilhelm’s first of 1,161 career victories. The following night, the two teams will face each other at Fluor Field in Greenville, SC.
Wake Forest will make its first trip to Doug Kingsmore Stadium since 2006 for a three-game series from March 13-15. Presbyterian and USC Upstate will then travel to Tigertown for Clemson’s first home night games at 6:30 PM before Clemson plays at Florida State from March 20-22. The Tigers have never faced USC Upstate on the diamond.
Following a two-game, midweek home series against Elon, Clemson will visit Boston College from March 27-29. The Tigers have not played at Chestnut Hill since the 2006 season.
The annual home-and-home series against Georgia will begin in Athens on March 31 before the two meet at Clemson the following night. The game at Clemson will mark the first of nine straight games and 21 of 27 at home for the Tigers.
Clemson will host Duke from April 3-5 before playing midweek home games against Furman and South Carolina, with the latter scheduled for a 7:00 PM start.
Miami (FL) will visit Doug Kingsmore Stadium from April 10-12 to conclude the homestand, then the Tigers will play a midweek, home-and-home series with Western Carolina before traveling to Blacksburg, VA to play at Virginia Tech.
The Tigers will have their seventh straight five-game week, starting with a home contest against Coastal Carolina before concluding the four-game season series with South Carolina in Columbia on April 22. Clemson will return home to face Georgia Tech from April 24-26 before a five-day hiatus for final exams.
Maryland, who has not played at Clemson since 2006, will travel south to face the Tigers from May 2-4 for a Saturday-through-Monday series. Clemson will then play its second and final game at Fluor Field against Furman on May 6.
UNC Wilmington will face the Tigers for the first time since 1998 in a three-game set at Doug Kingsmore Stadium from May 8-10, then Clemson will play its annual home game against College of Charleston on May 12.
The Tigers will conclude the regular season with a three-game series at N.C. State from May 14-16.
The top-eight teams in the ACC standings will participate in the ACC Tournament at Durham (NC) Bulls Athletic Park from May 20-24. The tournament was originally scheduled to be held at Fenway Park in Boston, MA, but due to a scheduling conflict, Fenway Park is now scheduled to host the event in May of 2010.
