CHARLESTON, S.C. – The College of Charleston baseball team and head coach Monte Lee have announced the 2015 spring schedule with the Cougars looking to build on the momentum of one of their best seasons in program history a year ago.
The 2015 slate features banner games with big-name programs out of the SEC, Big Ten, and ACC while paying honor to the traditional rivalries Cougar fans are familiar with. Charleston will play 28 regular-season games within the friendly confines of Patriots Point before playing host to the 2015 CAA Championships May 20-24.
Last season, the Cougars finished the season ranked No. 16 (Collegiate Baseball) nationally, the program’s highest ranking since finishing 12th according to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association in 2006.
As first-year members of the Colonial Athletic Association, CofC hoisted the 2014 CAA Championship with three consecutive wins in the CAA Tournament before becoming the first four seed to ever sweep an NCAA Regional, taking out SEC Champion Florida in the process, and advancing to its second-ever NCAA Super Regional.
The 2015 season opens with a Feb. 13-15 series at perennial powerhouse South Carolina which will test the Cougars immensely out of the gate.
“We’re excited for the schedule that we’ve put together for the 2015 season,” said Lee, who enters his seventh season at the helm. “The main focus for us is to challenge our guys to the best of our ability in the early part of the season. We’ve accomplished that having South Carolina on the road to open the season. That will be a great early test against one of the premiere programs in the country in a hostile environment.
“I think it’s a schedule that should challenge our guys; we play a lot on the road this year which we need from an NCAA RPI standpoint. Our goal is always to get into the NCAA Tournament, and there are only two ways to do that: winning your tournament, which a competitive schedule prepares you for; or you get in as an at-large team. I feel we’ve got some quality teams we’re playing on the road, and if we can win some of those games, it should help us when the NCAA selection committee looks at our resume at the end of the year.”
The following weekend the Cougars will renew their crosstown rivalry with The Citadel, hosting the Friday/Sunday games at Patriots Point with the Saturday showdown being hosted by the Bulldogs at Joe Riley Park.
After a midweek trip to UNC Charlotte, the Cougars will welcome Indiana, which advanced to the 2013 College World Series and earned an NCAA Tournament national seed a season ago.
The Cougars will then ascend to the Blue Ridge Mountain region of Virginia for a March 3-4 twinbill at Virginia Tech out of the ACC followed by a weekend series at Radford (March 6-8).
CofC will play nine of its next 10 games in Charleston by hosting USC Upstate (March 11) and High Point (March 13-15), heading to Campbell (March 17), and opening the CAA season at home against Towson (March 20-22).
“If you look at our non-conference schedule, we’ve got a very difficult slate to go along with a pretty tough CAA conference schedule,” said Lee. “The big thing is that we want to challenge our guys. That’s what we tell them when we recruit them: we’re going to play a tough schedule. We’re looking forward to the challenges of the 2015 season.”
The Cougars make the short trek up I-26 to face Charleston Southern (March 24) before Campbell, which won a game in the NCAA Columbia Regional last year, returns the favor and completes the home-and-home series at Patriots Point on March 25.
The College will then travel to James Madison (March 27-29) for a three-game CAA set and remain on the road to face USC Upstate (March 31).
The Cougars will open a seven-game homestand bookended by CAA series with Hofstra (April 3-5) and league newcomer Elon (April 10-12), sandwiched around a midweek clash with 2014 NCAA Tournament participant Georgia Southern.
The Cougars are on the road for tests with regional rival Coastal Carolina (April 14), CAA foe Delaware (April 17-19), and the second half of the Georgia Southern (April 21) home-and-home series.
After hosting Coastal (April 22) and Furman (April 24-26), CofC returns to league play with a three-game series at William and Mary (May 1-3). The Tribe crowned the regular season last year, and neither team will soon forget the 23-inning marathon affair which CofC emerged victorious after the second-longest game in NCAA history.
After a midweek game at Clemson (May 6), the Cougars host UNC Wilmington (May 8-10) and Charleston Southern (May 12) before wrapping the regular season at Northeastern (May 14-16).
“We just finished our first year in the CAA and one thing I’d say is that it is a very competitive league,” said Lee. “If you look at this year, we’ve got some tough road series. We go to James Madison, we go to Delaware, we go to William and Mary, and we go to Northeastern. Northeastern was one of the better pitching teams in the league last year; William and Mary obviously was a very good club; JMU and Delaware will have some really good guys coming back. It’s a tough schedule conference-wise. We do get UNC Wilmington at home; they’re a very strong program. We get the newcomer Elon at home and they’ve been to multiple NCAA Regionals in recent years. Those are all going to be challenges.
“I look at every weekend and know it’s a very competitive league. We’re excited about the challenges that the league has for us for this year.”
The Charleston area’s world-famous hospitality will be on display for the 2015 edition of the CAA Championships, with the Cougars playing host to the year-end tourney May 20-24 with the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
2015 College of Charleston Schedule
