The 2009 William and Mary seniors will guide the Tribe baseball team through 56 games this spring leading up to the CAA and NCAA Championships.
FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
WILLIAMSBURG – William and Mary baseball coach Frank Leoni announced the Tribe’s 2009 competition schedule today, which features 56 games to prepare W&M for the Colonial Athletic Association and NCAA Tournaments. 35 games are scheduled to be played at Plumeri Park, 33 featuring the Tribe and two which will feature teams in a neutral-site match-up. In total, W&M will have seven games against three teams that made the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
“We are very much looking forward to this challenging schedule in 2009,” Leoni said. “With a newly restructured CAA schedule [no longer a round-robin], it allows our team an opportunity to play some much needed non-conference games early in the season.”
The season begins the weekend of February 20-22, as the Tribe hosts Buffalo and Iona Universities in a six-game round-robin event. W&M will play two games against each school, facing Buffalo on Friday and Saturday at 4 p.m. both days, and taking on Iona Saturday and Sunday at 12 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively. Buffalo and Iona will also play two games against each other, Friday at 12 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m. at Plumeri Park.
W&M’s first mid-week game will be a trip up to Charlottesville, Virginia, to take on UVA at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24. The season-long road swing of five games continues the following weekend, February 27-March 1, at Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the Wake Forest Invitational. The Tribe will play two games on February 27, at 11 a.m. against Miami (Ohio) and at 2:30 p.m. against Fairleigh Dickinson. Saturday, W&M and FDU will play again at 11 a.m., and the Tribe will close the tournament against the host Demon Deacons Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
After a pair of mid-week games March 3-4, at home against Richmond on Tuesday at 3 p.m. and on the road at VMI on Wednesday at 4 p.m., W&M hosts Princeton for a four-game weekend series March 6-8. A 4 p.m. Friday game will start the action, with the teams playing a double-header on Saturday (12 p.m. and 3 p.m.) and the capper on Sunday at 1 p.m. Both mid-week games the following week, March 10-11, are on the road with the Tribe traveling to George Washington Tuesday at 3 p.m. and Liberty Wednesday also at 3 p.m.
W&M’s longest homestand of the season begins March 13-15 with three games against Wagner, 4 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday, and 1 p.m. on Sunday. The Tribe hosts Rhode Island Tuesday and Wednesday, March 17-18, for a mid-week series, playing at 5 p.m. both days, and opens the CAA season with Georgia State March 20-22. The Panthers and the Tribe will play at 4 p.m. on Friday before marking the 10th anniversary of Plumeri Park on Saturday at 2 p.m. The series finale is Sunday at 1 p.m. The nine-game run at Plumeri Park ends Wednesday, March 25, as the College hosts Norfolk State at 5 p.m.
The next day, Thursday, March 26, finds the Tribe on the road to Longwood for a 6 p.m. first-pitch. After that brief journey across the state, W&M returns to Williamsburg to host George Mason in a three-game CAA series March 27-29. The series opens Friday at 7 p.m., and continues Saturday at 4 p.m. before the rubber match on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Tribe and the Spiders of Richmond play for the second time on April 1 in Richmond at 3:30 p.m., before W&M boards a plane to Boston to face Northeastern April 3-5. Friday’s game against the Huskies is at 2 p.m., while Saturday is at 12 p.m. and Sunday will be played at 1 p.m.
After a short stop at home to face Liberty at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7, the Tribe goes back on the road, this time heading south to face UNC Wilmington April 10-12. The Friday game will be played at 7 p.m., with Saturday’s game starting at 4 p.m. and Sunday’s finale at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 brings Maryland-Eastern Shore to Plumeri Park at 7 p.m., and the following weekend, April 17-19, finds the Tribe hosting Towson for three games. Friday’s first-pitch is at 7 p.m., with Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
W&M heads to Blacksburg on Tuesday, April 21 to face Virginia Tech at 5:30 p.m., before traveling down I-64 East April 24-26 to take on arch-rival Old Dominion in Norfolk. Game-times are set for 7 p.m. on Friday, 4 p.m. on Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The home schedule closes with seven games in the following two weeks, starting Tuesday and Wednesday, April 28-29, with second meetings with VMI and George Washington, respectively. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m., as is the series opener against James Madison on Friday, May 1. The Dukes will also play against the Tribe Sturday, May 2 at 4 p.m., and Sunday, May 3, at 1 p.m. May 10 is the final day of baseball at Plumeri Park in 2009, and showcases the Tribe in a double-header against Longwood starting at 1 p.m.
The regular-season concludes Friday and Saturday, May 15-16, at Hofstra University. Friday’s game is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., while Saturday is a double-header scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. The CAA Championship returns to Brooks Field in Wilmington, North Carolina, for the ninth time and sixth year in a row May 20-23, and will feature the top six teams in the conference in a double-elimination format.
If invited, the Tribe will play in the NCAA Regional round at a campus site May 29-31, with the possibility of advancing to the Super Regional round June 5-7. The College World Series will be held June 13-24 at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. 64 total teams start the tournament in 16 Regionals, with the winner of each four-team double-elimination bracket advancing to one of eight Super Regional match-ups. The Super Regionals are a best of three format, with the winning team advancing to the College World Series, where two double-elimination brackets of four teams will produce two teams for a best-three championship series.
