JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The University of North Florida baseball team will open up its 2015 season at Harmon Stadium on Friday, Feb. 13th against Virginia Military Institute as part of a three-game, season-opening series. The Ospreys unveiled the rest of their 2015 schedule that includes 31 home games.
The Ospreys go into their fifth season under the direction of Head Coach Smoke Laval who has compiled 120 wins and appeared in back-to-back Atlantic Sun Conference Tournaments. Always equipped with a plethora of talent, North Florida has produced five Major League Baseball draft picks in the past two seasons.
“We have a challenging schedule ahead of us and we are excited to have a chance to play in front of our home fans a good amount of times this season,” said Laval. “Our schedule includes a number of teams that participated in an NCAA Regional last season which should help us, especially when it comes to Atlantic Sun play. Each year the conference portion of our schedule gets more demanding, a testament to how strong the league has been and will be this year.”
After hosting the first four games of the season, the Ospreys will head west to Pensacola for the Diamond Invitational, hosted by the Pensacola Sports Association. The Ospreys will play four games in three days including a doubleheader on Friday, Feb. 20 against Nicholls and Southern Mississippi. North Florida will play a single game against Troy on Saturday and another single game against St. Louis on Sunday. The tournament will be played at the Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park, one of the premier minor league facilities in the country.
The Ospreys will host home series’ against Fairfield, Brown and Bradley in March before beginning their Atlantic Sun Conference schedule with defending Regular Season Champions, Florida Gulf Coast on Friday, Mar. 27. North Florida will play 13 of the 19 scheduled games in March at Harmon Stadium and 18 of the 19 in the state of Florida.
The 2015 slate includes three, 2014 NCAA Tournament qualifiers in Bethune-Cookman, Georgia Southern and Kennesaw St. The Ospreys will take on a total of five, first-time opponents in Bradley, Nicholls St., Southern Mississippi, St. Louis and VMI.
The River City Rumble with feature four games this year beginning with a mid-week bout on Wednesday, Mar. 18 at Jacksonville. The two teams will square off in Atlantic Sun play in a three-game set starting on Friday, April 17. The annaul series will have some added juice after the Dolphins took two out of three from the Ospreys in the regular season last year and ultimately eliminated them from the A-Sun Tournament in an extra innings thriller in late May.
Information on season ticket packages as well as single-game tickets will become available at a later date. Check back on www.unfospreys.com or follow the North Florida baseball team on twitter, @OspreyBSB for the latest news.
