FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Navy baseball head coach Paul Kostacopoulos announced the team’s 51-game schedule for the 2010 season on Thursday morning. Among the 51 contests, 32 are scheduled to take place within the confines of Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium.
Navy’s 2010 schedule features 26 games against teams that advanced to their conference postseason tournament and six contests against squads that qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
"I feel that this year’s schedule will certainly be competitive for us," said Kostacopoulos, who has won 119 games with the Midshipmen over his first-four seasons in Annapolis. "We are fortunate to have a facility that allows us to play 16 of our first-25 games before Patriot League action at home."
The Midshipmen will kick off the 2010 slate with a three-game trip down to Durham, N.C., on Feb. 19-21. Navy will open the season with Delaware State before taking on Iona and host North Carolina Central on the following days. Three days later on Feb. 24, Navy will host the first of its 32 home games on the spring when it welcomes Maryland Eastern Shore.
Navy then heads back on the road to take on service academy foe Air Force in a three-game series on Feb. 26-28 at historic Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Ga., home of the minor-league Savannah Sand Gnats (South Atlantic League – Class A).
Once the Mids arrive back in Annapolis, they will begin a stretch of a month and a half where they will not leave the Old Line State, highlighted by a 13-game homestand. The Midshipmen open that stretch with Coppin State (one game, March 3) before welcoming in Central Connecticut State (three games, March 6-7), Mount St. Mary’s (one game, March 9), NCAA Regional participant Monmouth (two games, March 13-14), Iona (two games, March 15) and Princeton (four games, March 19-21).
The Midshipmen will travel instate for their next-two games, as they head to Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda to take on Georgetown (March 24) before driving up to Baltimore to face UMBC (March 26). Navy and UMBC will then meet up in Annapolis for games on March 27-28, before heading back on the road to compete against Maryland on March 31 to close out its pre-league slate.
Navy will begin a nine-game homestand and Patriot League play in Annapolis against Lehigh for four games on April 3-4. Two days later on April 6, the Mids will play a mid-week game against local foe George Washington.
The Midshipmen will close out their home stretch with a four-game series against service academy rival and defending Patriot League champion Army on April 10-11. Navy owns a 101-91 advantage in the all-time series and a 50-38 mark against the Black Knights in Annapolis.
Following a midweek game at Maryland Eastern Shore on April 14, Navy will leave the state of Maryland to take on Bucknell for a Patriot League four-game stanza in Lewisburg, Pa., on April 17-18. The Midshipmen will come back to Annapolis to host Towson on April 20, before welcoming the league’s northern-most member, Holy Cross, for a four-game set on April 24-25.
The Mids will play its final non-league road game of the year at Coppin State on April 29, followed by a four-game set against Patriot League opponent Lafayette on May 1-2 in Easton, Pa., to wrap up their 20-game league slate. Last season, the Midshipmen took three games from the Leopards in Annapolis, in which they allowed only 11 runs over the four-game weekend.
Navy concludes its regular season on May 11-12 with a two-game set against the team it opened the year against, Delaware State.
The top-four teams in the Patriot League standings at the end of the regular season will advance to the league tournament. The top-two seeds will host the lower-two seeds in a best-of-three series on May 15-16. The squads that advance will meet at the higher remaining seed on May 22-23 for a best-of-three championship series, with the winner earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which begins on June 4.
Last spring, the Midshipmen (20-26-1, 8-12 PL) recorded their fourth-straight 20-win season. The 20-win campaign was the 27th over the program’s first-114 years.
