FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (www.purduesports.com) – Five home weekends and 23 home games total at the new Alexander Field highlight Purdue baseball’s 2013 schedule, announced by head coach Doug Schreiber.
Ohio State (March 22-24), Northwestern (April 5-7), Nebraska (April 19-21), Southern Illinois (May 3-5) and Iowa (May 16-18) will visit West Lafayette for three-game weekend series in the Boilermakers’ inaugural season at their new home stadium.
Purdue is slated to Illinois-Chicago March 19 for the first regular-season season game at Alexander Field. Three days later Ohio State will be the opponent for the opening series of Big Ten play and the first weekend series in the history of the new stadium. A formal Alexander Field dedication game is being planned for Saturday, April 20 against Nebraska. Ohio State will visit campus for the first time since April 2009. Purdue has not hosted the Huskers since 1907.
The Boilermakers have a trio of five-game homestands on their schedule. Along with UIC, IPFW, Butler, Indiana State, Ball State, Illinois State and Eastern Michigan are also slated to visit Alexander Field for midweek action. The Boilers enter their new season riding a 17-game win streak in midweek action dating back to March 2011. Purdue and Southern Illinois both have an open weekend in their conference schedules the first weekend of May, leading to the nonconference series at Alexander Field.
Alexander Field will feature approximately 1,600 permanent seats, including the suite level on the second floor of the stadium structure. Chairback stadium box seats number at 479, many of which were sold as part of season ticket packages at the John Purdue Club Old Gold and Black Dinner (Aug. 31) and Alexander Field open house and season ticket drive (Sept. 22). General admission seating in the grass berm along the left field line pushes the initial total capacity of the stadium to nearly 2,000. There was also space set aside for additional bleachers to be added to the concourse for postseason contests and other marquee events.
The permanent chairback bleacher seats will be general admission seating. Season ticket prices are $60 for reserved chairback stadium seats, $35 for adult general admission and $25 for youth general admission. Tickets are available online via PurdueSports.com or by contacting the Purdue ticket office at 765-494-3194 or sporttix@purdue.edu.
The Boilermakers will travel to Penn State (March 29-31), Illinois (April 12-14), Michigan State (April 26-28) and Michigan (May 10-12) for their four Big Ten road series. Indiana and Minnesota remain the two opponents Purdue will not square off against during the regular season. The Big Ten Tournament (May 22-26) moves to Target Field in Downtown Minneapolis.
During the pre-Big Ten portion of the schedule, the Boilers are slated to play weekend series at Mississippi State (Feb. 22-24), Samford (March 1-3), UIC (March 8-10) and Evansville (March 15-17).
For the fourth year in a row, Purdue will begin its new season at the Clearwater-St. Petersburg area of the Florida Gulf Coast at the Big East/Big Ten Challenge. While the five-team field is not an officially conference-sponsored event this season, it does feature Indiana, Purdue, Connecticut, Louisville and South Florida. Games will be played at the spring training homes of the Toronto Blues and Philadelphia Phillies as well as historic Al Lang Stadium in downtown St. Petersburg. The Boilermakers will play four games in three days, opening and closing the weekend against UConn. Purdue has won its season opener against the Huskies each of the last two seasons.
Louisville is among the five teams that the Boilers are scheduled to play in two different locations. Purdue will also visit the Cardinals’ Patterson Stadium March 13 during the spring break trip. The Boilermakers will take on Samford in Starkville, Miss., as part of a three-team weekend Feb. 22-24. UIC visits Alexander Field for a pair of midweek games to go along with a three-game series in Chicago March 8-10. Purdue will play home-and-home midweek series with Indiana State and Ball State.
The weekend of Feb. 22-24 at Mississippi State’s Polk-Dement Stadium will feature three teams that qualified for the 2012 NCAA Tournament. Purdue was originally scheduled to play a three-game series against MSU but Samford was in need of games that weekend and also joined the mix. The Boilers will play two games against both Samford and MSU and then visit Samford’s campus in Birmingham the following weekend for a traditional three-game weekend series.
Purdue has not played at Starkville, Miss., since the 1987 NCAA Regional and has not squared off against Mississippi State since 1936. Eastern Michigan (May 14 at Alexander Field) represents the only other opponent on the 2013 schedule that Purdue has not played during Schreiber’s 15-year tenure as head coach. The Boilers last played EMU in May 1986.
Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 is the universal start date for all of NCAA Division I college baseball. Official preseason practice begins Friday, Jan. 25.
