CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – The Boston College baseball team released the 2018 schedule on Tuesday. The 55-game slate features 24 home games, seven matchups against 2017 NCAA Tournament teams and an exhibition game against the eight-time World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.
The Eagles’ home game will take place on their new home on the Brighton campus and include a slate of special events. The Seventh Annual ALS Awareness Game in honor of former captain and ALS advocate Pete Frates will take place on April 21 against 2017 College World Series participant Florida State. The May series against Louisville – also a 2017 CWS team – includes a host of events, including First Responders Day (May 4), in which BC will also recognize the Boston College Police Department, the Eagles’ Annual Military Appreciation (May 5), and Senior Day (May 6) on the final weekend home game.
BC begins the 2018 slate in California with a three-game set at Santa Clara (Feb. 16-18). The Eagles were last on the West Coast in 2014 when they went 3-1 to start the season in a round robin with the Broncos and Nevada.
The following week brings one of the highlights for the Eagles. On Feb. 22, they will take on the hometown Red Sox in a seven-inning exhibition game at the team’s spring training site, JetBlue Park at Fenway South in Fort Myers, Fla. BC stays in the Sunshine State to take on Minnesota, Indiana and Rutgers in the Snowbird Classic (Feb. 23-25). It will be the fifth time the Eagles play in the annual invitational.
The Eagles will spend spring break in North Carolina. The first weekend will start at the USA Baseball Complex in Cary, N.C., where BC will take on Niagara, Bryant and Army (March 2-4). They then travel to Asheville, N.C., for the first-ever meeting with UNC Asheville (March 6). Before opening the Atlantic Coast Conference slate, BC will play Wofford at Drive Stadium in Greenville, S.C. (March 7). During the week, the Eagles will take on three former BC assistants as Jim Foster is now at the helm of Army with John Murphy as an assistant and Scott Friedholm leads the Bulldogs.
BC starts the conference schedule with a three-game series at NC State on March 9-11. The Eagles are 8-10 in Raleigh but have won four of the last six meetings on the Pack’s turf.
The Eagles return to The Heights to christen the new field on March 13 with an in-state matchup against Holy Cross. They hit the road again to face Virginia (March 16-18) before a six-game home stand which includes a three-game set with Virginia Tech (March 23-25).
The Eagles will spend Easter break at Clemson, taking on the Tigers in a rare Thursday-Saturday series (March 29-31) before traveling across the Charles River to take on Harvard in the first round of the Beanpot Tournament on April 3. The championship and consolation games will be played at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough, Mass., on April 10.
Other ACC matchups at The Heights include Pittsburgh (April 6-8), Wake Forest (April 13-15), Florida State (April 20-22) and Louisville (May 4-6). The Eagles will take on Notre Dame in South Bend (April 27-29) before ending the regular season at Miami (May 17-19).
The Eagles host regional opponents Northeastern (March 20), Sienna (March 21), Connecticut (March 27), Massachusetts (April 4), Dartmouth (April 18), Bryant (April 25), Rhode Island (May 1) and Maine (May 15) at The Heights. They travel to UMass Lowell (April 24) and Brown (May 2).
The ACC Championships will be back in Durham, N.C., at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park beginning on May 22. The Eagles have made the conference tournament back-to-back years for the first time since 2009-10.
The Eagles finished the 2017 season with a 25-28 record and 11 conference wins, the second-most under eighth-year head coach Mike Gambino. They return all three weekend starting pitchers and five starting position players from last year’s squad.
