PHILADELPHIA – University of Pennsylvania W. Joseph Blood Head Coach of Baseball John Yurkow has announced the 2015 schedule for the Quakers. Penn is schedule to host 16 home games this spring, including 10 Ivy League games.
Penn’s lineup of games is highlighted by early season trips south, heading to Florida to take on Stetson to begin the season, before traveling to Virginia over spring break to face Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth (VCU), and Richmond.
“Stetson will be a challenge for us to start the season,” said Yurkow. “They are a well-coached club and I expect an awesome atmosphere for the series.”
The trip to Virginia will find the Quakers playing two teams that finished with over 30 wins in 2014, and a NCAA regional team.
“We are playing a challenging schedule for our annual spring break trip,” explains Yurkow. “Old Dominion won 36 games and was a NCAA regional team last year, and VCU won 37 games, before losing in their conference championship game. Round that out with an experienced Richmond club and it should make for a great week of baseball for us.”
After returning from its two trips, Penn will face Philadelphia opponents in six games prior to beginning Ivy League play. The Quakers will face Villanova, before a four game series with Lafayette, and the first Liberty Bell Classic game against Saint Joseph’s.
Ivy play begins at home in late March, with a doubleheader against Harvard, before taking on Dartmouth.
Coach Yurkow describes the Ivy League as, “being balanced from top to bottom this year in both divisions.”
A midweek non-conference matchup against Saint Peter’s splits Ivy weekends, as the Quakers will travel north to face Yale and Brown in doubleheaders, the weekend after hosting the Crimson and Big Green.
A second Liberty Bell Classic game will take place in early April against either Lafayette or Villanova. The Red and Blue will then travel to Cornell for a four game series with the Big Red.
Finishing up non-conference play will be a midweek doubleheader against the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), before hosting Princeton. Rounding out the regular season and Ivy League play will be the home-and-home doubleheaders with Columbia.
The Ivy League Baseball Championship series is scheduled to take place May 2-3.
In Yurkow’s first season at the helm in 2014, Penn finished 24-17 overall record, and 15-5 in the Ivy League. The Quakers had nine individuals named All-Ivy, with six of those nine – Austin Bossart, Jake Cousins, Connor Cuff, Ronnie Glenn, Ryan Mincher, and Jeff McGarry – returning for Penn in 2015.
