Murray State baseball announced its 2018 schedule Wednesday. The Racers will play 31 of their 56 games at Reagan Field this season and will again play a game at Brooks Stadium in Paducah for the third consecutive season.
“We are excited about this year’s team and this schedule will do a good job challenging us and preparing the team for OVC play,” said Head Coach Kevin Moulder.
The Racers begin 2018 with a three-game series at Kansas (February 16-18) before heading down to Huntsville, Ala., to face Alabama A&M. MSU will host Western Illinois (Feb. 23-25) and Fort Wayne (March 2-4) at Reagan Field in its two non-conference home series.
“Opening up with a Big 12 opponent in Kansas on the road will be a great opportunity for our team to see where we are at versus a high-level of competition,” said Moulder.
MSU will be hosting Southern Illinois (March 7), Kentucky State (March 14), Brescia (March 19), Western Kentucky (April 3), Evansville (April 4), Harris Stowe (April 8), Austin Peay (April 11), Memphis (April 24) and Alabama A&M (May 1) in their non-conference mid-week contests this year. The Racers will also be traveling to face Ole Miss (Feb. 27), Kentucky (March 13), Missouri State (March 21), Evansville (April 10) and SIU (April 18) in non-conference action.
“Our midweek slate in particular is going to be a lot of fun and extremely competitive,” said Moulder.
“It is a great mix of regional rivals and other highly regarded programs, a number of them are coming off seasons in which they competed in Super Regionals. I am also happy that we are playing a game in Paducah at historic Brooks stadium against Kentucky again this season, that’s a great showcase game for our program and college baseball in this region.”
The Brooks Stadium contest against Kentucky is scheduled for May 15 at 6 p.m.
Conference play begins March 9 for the Racers as SIU Edwardsville comes to town for the opening three-game series of OVC play. Eastern Illinois (March 23-25), Tennessee Tech (April 13-15), Belmont (April 27-29) and Morehead State (May 11-13) will be the remaining home conference series in 2018.
In 2017, the Racers won 29 games – the most wins in a season since 2009 and was the seventh-most victories in program history. MSU also qualified for the OVC Tournament for the first time since 2010 last season and won a pair of games at the tournament.
