BOSTON – Northeastern baseball head coach Mike Glavine announced the program’s 2015 schedule on Monday. The Huskies will navigate a challenging slate of non-conference games on top of a competitive CAA schedule.
South Carolina highlights the list of non-conference opponents Northeastern will battle this season along with St. Joseph’s, Bryant, Connecticut, and Hartford. During the course of the 2015 campaign, the Huskies will face five teams that had .600 or better winning percentages in 2014, three teams that finished with 40 or more wins, and three NCAA Regional teams, including College of Charleston who advanced to the Super Regional round.
Northeastern will play its first ten games of 2015 away from Friedman Diamond, and opens the season in San Antonio, Texas with a three-game series against Incarnate Word from Feb. 13-15.
One week later, the Huskies will be tested in a three-game set against South Carolina from Feb. 20-22. The Gamecocks briefly held the top spot in the NCBWA poll last season after a perfect 15-0 start, and ended the year fourth in the SEC with a 44-18 (18-12 SEC) mark. South Carolina hosted the Columbia Regional of the NCAA tournament last year as a No. 1 seed.
After bumping heads with the Gamecocks, the Huskies will participate in the 2015 Snowbird Classic held in Port Charlotte, Florida. Northeastern will play four games against a variety of Division I programs from Feb. 28-Mar. 2. This year marks the third consecutive season that the Huskies will compete in the Snowbird Classic, having accumulated an 8-3 record in round-robin play during the previous two seasons.
Following the tournament, Northeastern will remain in Florida for an extra day to take on the Boston Red Sox in a spring exhibition game on Mar. 3. The Huskies are still looking for their first win against the MLB club in 12 straight annual tries, but NU has come within three runs of the Sox in both the 2013 and 2014 games.
Northeastern opens its home schedule at Friedman Diamond on Friday, Mar. 6 at 3 p.m. with the first of four weekend games against Brown, including a Saturday doubleheader on Mar. 7.
The Huskies will then hit the Philadelphia area to compete in its first ever appearance in the Big Five Baseball Bash. Northeastern will play three games in the tournament against La Salle (Friday, Mar. 13), St. Joseph’s (Saturday, Mar. 14), and Villanova (Sunday, Mar. 15).
NU kicks off its 2015 CAA schedule with a three-game road series at UNCW from Mar. 20-22. The Huskies will then travel back to Huntington Avenue to begin a six-game home stand with two matchups against in-state rivals Boston College and UMass Lowell on Mar. 24 and 25.
The Huskies first home CAA weekend will be that of Mar. 27-29, when Northeastern hosts conference rival Delaware in a three game series.
After meeting Rhode Island on Mar. 31, Northeastern will head to Bryant for the second of back-to-back weeknight games on Apr. 1. The Huskies will close out the road trip with three games at Elon from Apr. 3-5, and two games against Connecticut and Boston College on Apr. 7 and 8.
Two three-game weekend series against James Madison (Apr. 10-12) and NYIT (Apr. 17-19) will sandwich a Wednesday night trip to Quinnipiac on Apr. 15, and offer the Huskies great preparation for when they take the field at Fenway Park in the 2015 Beanpot on Apr. 22.
Northeastern will leave Fenway and look forward to back-to-back CAA weekend stints at home against Hofstra (Apr. 24-26) and on the road against Towson (May 1-3). The team will then travel to Hartford on May 5 before heading to Williamsburg, Virginia to battle the defending CAA regular season champions, William & Mary.
NU will tussle with UMass Lowell on May 12 in the final non-conference game of the year before ending the regular season with three straight games against the defending CAA champions, College of Charleston, from May 14-16.
Despite the demanding calendar for Northeastern, Glavine is confident his team will rise up to the occasion when the Huskies take the field this spring.
“I am excited to announce the 2015 season schedule and the 95th in team history,” Glavine said. “We have another challenging schedule this year, playing 13 of our first 17 games on the road before we start CAA play.
“We look forward to those early challenges before we begin conference games. The CAA continues to get stronger with the addition of Elon and our non-conference schedule will be difficult especially facing South Carolina.”
