VESTAL, N.Y. – Binghamton baseball will kick off a 54-game spring slate with a four-game set at 2015 NCAA participant Houston Baptist on February 19-21. The Bearcats will face four new opponents in 2016 and will see foes from eight different conferences, including the Big Ten, Atlantic 10, CAA and Southern Conference.
“Every year the goal is to put together a schedule filled with early-season and mid-week challenges in hopes that those games help prepare us as a program for the rigorous demands of the America East Conference,” 24th-year head coach Tim Sinicki said. “The first five weeks of the 2016 schedule has us playing four programs we’ve never played before in Houston Baptist, UNC-Greensboro, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and going to back to one of our favorite venues at VMI.”
The series against the reigning Southland Conference champion Huskies begins a stretch of 18 consecutive road games that will take BU to Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
After the four-game set in Houston, the Bearcats will face another first-time opponent in UNC-Greensboro the next weekend (Feb. 26-28). From there, BU will continue its longstanding rivalry with VMI (March 4-6) and then face former America East power Delaware for the first time. The Hens won 26 games in the CAA last year, including three straight victories in the postseason tournament. Delaware (five straight from 1994-98) and Binghamton (four straight from 2007-10) hold the America East top two marks for most consecutive regular season titles and Delaware’s departure from the America East in 2001 opened the door for the Bearcats to become a member.
The Bearcats will then face Ivy League power Penn for the first time (March 19-20). The Quakers went 16-4 in the Ivy League last spring, falling just short of a postseason berth.
Binghamton will host Bucknell in a twinbill on March 22 in its final tuneup before the 24-game conference slate begins. Intermixed with America East series’ in April and May will be games against traditional state rivals Cornell, Marist, Siena and St. Bonaventure. For the second time in five years, BU will head to University Park, Pa. to face Big Ten member Penn State (March 30). The Bearcats will also host New York Institute of Technology in a three-game set (April 30-May 1) on their bye weekend from conference play.
The America East schedule features eight three-game series’ – four at home and four on the road. In 2016, BU will host Albany (April 2-3), Hartford (April 16-17), Stony Brook (May 7-8) and finish up with a final series against Maine (May 20-21). This season, the conference tournament will open up to all six eligible schools (all but UMass Lowell) and will be played May 25-28 at LeLacheur Park in Lowell, Mass.
