THE FLATS – The Georgia Tech baseball team will host a total of 35 games this season at Russ Chandler Stadium, announced Yellow Jackets’ head coach Danny Hall who is in his 25th season on The Flats.
“I think as always, we have one of the most challenging schedules in the country,” stated Coach Hall. “The thing about the ACC now is that there are several teams capable of not only winning a weekend series, but making it to a NCAA Regional. When you look at our midweek games, anytime that you play Georgia three times and Auburn twice, which are two SEC powers, and then you play regional foes Kennesaw State, Georgia State, Mercer and Georgia Southern, it makes our schedule top to bottom, not only on weekends, but also midweek definitely challenging.”
Of the 56 contests in 2018, 26 games will come against a total of nine teams that participated in the 2017 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship Tournament a year ago with 13 of those games coming at home against UIC, Auburn, Florida State, Wake Forest and Radford.
The Atlantic Coast Conference portion of the Yellow Jackets’ 2018 schedule includes three-game weekend series showdowns against Coastal Division foes Virginia Tech (Mar. 16-18), Miami (Mar. 30-Apr. 1), Pittsburgh (Apr. 13-15), North Carolina (Apr. 20-22), Virginia (May 11-13) and Duke (May 17-19), as well as cross-divisional series matchups against Clemson (Mar. 9-11), NC State (Mar. 23-25), Florida State (Apr. 6-8) and Wake Forest (Apr. 27-29) out of the Atlantic Division.
In ACC play, the Jackets will host Virginia Tech, Miami, Florida State, Wake Forest and Duke, while Tech’s out-of-conference home schedule includes three-game series with Dartmouth (Feb. 23-25), UIC (Mar. 2-4) and Radford (May 4-6), as well as opening weekend contests versus Minnesota (Feb. 16), Bradley (Feb. 17) and UConn (Feb. 18) as part of the Atlanta Challenge.
“There are some great ACC series that we have the chance to host here at home between Miami and Florida State back-to-back, Wake Forest who was really good last year, Duke and then Virginia Tech on the front end of the season in March,” Hall continued. “It is a challenging schedule, but that’s why you come to Georgia Tech to play the very best and we look forward to attacking that schedule come this spring.”
Regional rivalries will continue in 2018, as Tech will host Kennesaw State (Apr. 18) and play home and away contests versus Georgia Southern (Feb. 20 & Mar. 27), Georgia State (Mar. 7 & Apr. 11), Auburn (Mar. 13 & Mar. 20), Mercer (Mar. 21 & Apr. 10) and Georgia (Apr. 3 & Apr. 24) with the third game of the Tech-UGA series taking place at SunTrust Park on May 8.
The Yellow Jackets will also welcome Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Feb. 27) and Southeast Missouri State (May 15) to Russ Chandler Stadium for midweek contests in the spring.
The 2018 ACC Baseball Championship will return to Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C., this year from May 22-27 after taking place last year at Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, Ky.
“The ACC Championship this year is back in Durham where they certainly have a great venue and a great ballpark right in the middle of ACC country. So it will definitely be something to look forward to, the opportunity to play in Durham Bulls Athletic Park,” Hall concluded.
