UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. – Head coach Tracy Woodson and his staff announced the schedule for the 2019 baseball season Wednesday morning. The Spiders will play eight games against teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference, and seven games against teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament a season ago. The Spiders will have 24 contests against eight Atlantic 10 opponents, with the conference tournament to be hosted by Fordham at Houlihan Park towards the end of May. The 55-game schedule features 31 games at Pitt Field.
“What we’ve done with our 2019 schedule is to try to provide as many opportunities as possible to challenge our student-athletes.” Head coach Tracy Woodson said, “With eight games against ACC opponents, and scheduling several other tough programs, we are preparing ourselves for the difficult A-10 lineup. We wanted to test our student-athletes and our program early and often. I think this schedule has done just that.”
The Spiders will open the season on the road with three games in the Atlanta Challenge, hosted by Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State. The season will get started Feb. 15th as Richmond will face Georgia State at 4 p.m. The following day at 2 p.m. the Spiders will face the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets at Russ Chandler Stadium, a field that has twice been named “Field of the Year” by the Sports Turf Managers Association. The weekend will wrap up as the Spiders will play Kennesaw State in Kennesaw on the Feb. 17 at 1 p.m.
Pitt Field will play host to nine of the next 10 games as the Spiders will open the home schedule against James Madison on Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. and Bowling Green for a weekend series Feb. 22-24. After taking on a Duke team that in 2018 reached the NCAA Super Regional round and was a win away from reaching the College World Series, in Durham Feb. 26th, UR will host Rider for three games to open March and a midweek contest against Norfolk State on March 6.
The Atlantic 10 schedule gets started early as the Spiders will head to Davidson to take on the Wildcats for a three-game set at Wilson Field March 8-10. Richmond wraps up the five-game road trip with a pair of games at Virginia Tech at newly renovated English Field at Union Park in Blacksburg.
The Spiders begin an eight-game homestand following the spring break trip to Davidson and Virginia Tech. Richmond will play four teams in four days March 15-18, hosting Bryant, Toledo and Quinnipiac in the Spider Invitational March 15-17. There will be a neutral site game each morning at 10 a.m. during the Spider Invitational before the Spiders will play Bryant, Toledo and Quinnipiac on consecutive days, respectively at 2 p.m. The Spiders will host the Princeton Tigers on the 18th at 4 p.m. and Monmouth on March 20. Richmond will host a three-game set with the Marist Red Foxes at Pitt Field March 22-24 to conclude the homestand.
The Spiders will look to repeat their success in Charlottesville on March 27 where they will take on the Virginia Cavaliers at 4 p.m. UR’s last visit to Charlottesville resulted in the Spiders earning an 11-3 win a season ago.
Richmond returns home for an A-10 series against George Mason, March 29-31 before beginning its longest road trip of the season. The Spiders will be away from Pitt Field for the next nine games. The road trip begins with a midweek against James Madison on April 2, before heading to Rhode Island for an A-10 series with the Rams April 5-7. The following midweek will see the Spiders travel to Lynchburg for a meeting with the Liberty Flames April 9. UR follows with a trip to Dayton for a three-game A-10 series with the Flyers April 12-14 before finishing the road swing with a trip to Lexington to take on VMI on April 16.
The cross-town rival VCU Rams will head to Pitt Field for a three-game A-10 series April 19-21. Last season, the Spiders took two of three from the Rams at The Diamond. 2017 saw VCU sweep the Spiders to close the regular season. UR will host William and Mary two days later before heading to St. Bonaventure for a three-game A-10 series with the Bonnies in New York.
Richmond will host A-10 foe George Washington for a three-game set May 3-5 and Delaware State in the final midweek contest of the season May 7.
The Spiders will help one of the most decorated collegiate coaches in NCAA history close out his final season May 10-12. Richmond will head to Tallahassee, Fla. for a three-game series with the Florida State Seminoles. FSU’s head coach of 39 years, Mike Martin is the all-time winningest coach in college baseball history, having amassed a career record of 1,987-713-4 heading into the 2019 campaign. Florida State baseball has won 40 or more games in 42 consecutive seasons, and was a national seed in last season’s NCAA Tournament.
The Spiders will close the regular season out against the 2018 A-10 Champion Saint Louis Billikens May 16-18. This will be the first meeting since the 2017 season when UR made the trip out west, dropping two of three games. The Billikens last visited Pitt Field in 2016, with the Spiders taking two of three games.
Fordham will host this year’s Atlantic 10 Tournament at Houlihan Park in the Bronx May 22-25. The Spiders will look to get back to the NCAA Tournament for the ninth time in school history, and the first time since the 2003 season.
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