The University of Virginia have released their 2007 schedule. There is no major surprises on the schedule with the regular 30 games in the ACC in addition to some OOC games. They will participate in the Coastal Carolina Tournament to start the year with Elon, North Florida and of course Coastal Carolina. They have a big visit from ACC powers Miami and GT this year. They will be visiting Chestnut Hill to end the season and the College Baseball Blog will be taking a few days off from work to make sure he sees the Thursday-Saturday series in May.

Full Schedule

Ryan Hastings of Illinois went 2 for 3 on Monday in an intrasquad scrimmage to take a 2 games to 1 lead on the Orange Team. Hastings started the game off with a bunt single then stole second and scored on another base hit to bring him around. Coach Dan Hartleb had the following to say about Hastings “He brought some great energy to the Blue team today. They did a good job of coming out very focused and jumping on the Orange team early.” Hastings will try to lead the Illini in their goal of winning the Big 10 conference in 2007.

Full release on the Intrasquad scrimmage available here.

Senior Longhorn Carson Kainer is recovering from a kidney transplant from his father. He had the surgery a few weeks ago and is expected to recover to play in his senior season this spring. Kainer was a 14 round pick of the Cincinnati Reds this past draft and was planning on signing but started to have complications with his kidney which had to be taken care of with the transplant. Kainer has suffered from chronic renal failure since the age of 2. This transplant did not come as a surprise as Kainer’s family knew that this day would come sooner then later. The College Baseball Blog staff hopes that Carson and Ron Kainer a quick recovery and hope to see them soon on a baseball field. Full story available here.

The defending Ivy League Champs Princeton Tigers have released their 2007 schedule. They will visit the Houston, UNC Greensboro, Elon, Davidson, and Longwood in their OOC series. They will also play a full slate in the Ivy League conference where they will face Yale, Brown, Cornell, and Columbia all in Princeton NJ. The Tigers will visit Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell in their home and home series this year. Princeton returns a very good team which almost won both games they played in the NCAA tourney this year and will look to win a few games this year in the tournament.

The University of South Carolina has the highest rated recruiting class by Collegiate Baseball. The Gamecocks brought in 14 players for the upcoming season with 8 high school recruits and 6 Junior College transfers. They picked up Jay Brown from Young Harris College who had an outstanding season for Cotuit on the Cape this summer. I had the opportunity to see this young man pitch and he is a solid pitcher with an incredible upside. Miami came in second in the ratings with many other top teams in the ratings.

The full ratings are available here.

My good buddy from Big Ten HardBall has posted a link to the University of Illinois schedule for the 2007 season. There is a ton of open game dates during their annual spring break trip. There are zero marquee OOC games they will play at home this year but they have a full Big Ten schedule which is always a challenge to unseat Ohio State as the perennial power in that conference.

Full Schedule available here.

The UNC TarHeels and Head Coach Mike Fox have released their baseball schedule for the 2007 season. They have a pretty easy Non-Conference schedule with Seton Hall and Penn State each coming in for 3 game sets. My Boston College Eagles will host Carolina on April 5, April 7, and April 8th. The College Baseball Blog will be making every effort to attend those games to see the NCAA Finalist in action up close. Florida State host Carolina on April 20-22 for their ACC clash and Miami comes in March 9th-March 11th.

The full schedule can be read here.

The Centenary College Baseball program has released their 2007 Baseball schedule. There are some highlights for them. They will host both LSU and Arkansas this season plus they play their Mid-Continent conference schedule like usual.

Full Schedule available here.

Mikio Aoki, the new head coach of baseball at Boston College has changed the recruiting strategy of the Eagles. He just signed St. John’s (Shrewsbury MA) shortstop Garrett Smith who will join the Eagles in the fall of 2007. Smith was recruited by the University of Maryland and Notre Dame but decided to join the Eagles because they are a local school. Full article linked here.

Mikio who is a resident of Plymouth Mass has become very active in the local recruiting scene by picking up a bunch of players in the area. There was a story this summer of him signing a player from Framingham Legion in July. The strategy of the Eagles is starting to look like they are going to sign all the good talent in the northeast and show those Southern schools that Boston kids can play some hardball.

The Virginia Cavaliers won an exhibition game on Sunday against the Ontario Blue Jays on Sunday 20-0 in 13 innings. The Cavs used every 13 pitchers in the game each going one inning. This was an impressive performance with Sean DooLittle pitching a perfect inning with 2 strikeouts and going 2 for 6 at the plate with 3 RBI’s. Full article can be read here.

BYU has released their schedule for the 2007 season. They are involved in the Service Academy Classic in Millington, TN. They also will be playing Pac 10 teams Washington and Washington State for quick two-game sets. They visit Pullman and the Huskies will be heading to Provo to face the Cougars.

The Full Schedule is available here.

The potential top team in the country in 2007 will start Fall Practice tomorrow September 14th. They return one of the best two-way players in the country in Sean DooLittle and Second team ACC players in Jacob Thompson and Brandon Marsh. They will play an exhibition game on Sunday against the Ontario Blue Jays. They will continue practicing until the annual Orange-Blue Series on October 12-14 which wraps up the fall season for them.

Full release here.

The University of Texas has posted an article interviewing a few of their players on their summer experiences. The players who were interviewed were Randy Boone (Coppell Copperheads), Preston Clark (Team USA), Bradley Suttle (Wareham Gatemen), and Drew Bishop (Santa Barbara Foresters). The article is available here.

Boston College has officially announced that they will be building a new baseball facility in the near future on the Brighton campus. This is a huge move for the Boston College Baseball program as they continue to improve and become a force in the ACC in the near future. I am looking forward to the days when I go to games at BC and see 4,000 people cheering on the Eagles.
New Baseball Stadium included in Master Campus Plan

The Arkansas Razorbacks have announced their 2007 Baseball Schedule. They will be participating in the Dairy Queen Classic in Minnesota this year facing off against Ole Miss, Citadel, and Minnesota. They also will host Kansas in the marquee OOC matchup for the upcoming season. The full schedule is available here.