HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss baseball coach Corky Palmer heads into his 10th season at the helm with expectations as high as ever for the Golden Eagles. Palmer and his staff have been putting the team, including 11 signees, through its paces this fall at revamped Taylor Park.

Q: Five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, but folks are waiting to see the program take the next step. Could this be the season?

A: “I would say 50 percent are happy with what we’ve done in five years and are proud. The other 50 are ready to go that next step, but no moreso than the staff and the players.

“The kids talk about it, and we need to push forward. There’s a lot of expectations.”

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The University of Maine has released their 2008 schedule. The Black Bears will open the season on February 23rd when they play a doubleheader against Delaware State. The Black Bears have a difficult schedule in 2008 with games against ACC power Miami, UNLV and Ivy League finalist Penn. They will play a full America East schedule with Albany, Stony Brook, and Hartford heading up to Orono for conference series. Maine will head on the road with conference series at UMBC, Binghamton, and Vermont. The full schedule is available here.

The University of Miami Hurricanes played another scrimmage on Saturday evening against Barry University. The Hurricanes picked up a 13-6 victory. The Hurricanes were led by sophomore Ryan Jackson who went 2-3 with three RBI. Eric Erickson pitched three shutout innings in the game to continue to hold his spot as the Canes number 1 starter. The full recap is available here.

The Miami Hurricanes welcomed Indian River Community College to Mark Light Field Friday night. The Hurricanes picked up a 12-5 victory in a ten inning scrimmage. The Hurricanes used Enrique Garcia for three innings where he struck out five batters. Southridge High School graduate Iden Nazario hit a three run homer for Canes to lead the offensive attack with Mark Sobolewski chipping in with three runs. The full recap is available here.

The USC baseball program announced its 2008 schedule with the Trojans set to open with their first-ever appearance at Florida International (Feb. 22-24) in Miami, Fla. This will be the first year that the “uniform starting date” set by the NCAA will be in effect, which accounts for the later starting date for USC.

USC will host Arizona, California, Washington and Oregon State in Pac-10 Conference play with road trips to Arizona State, UCLA, Stanford and Washington State in the final season with nine teams before Oregon rejoins the conference in 2009.

The Trojans will also make their first-ever appearance at Winthrop in Rock Hill, S.C., in a three-game series, March 7-9.

A total of 25 games are on tap at Dedeaux Field. Other home games for USC this season include Southern (Feb. 29), Bethune-Cookman (March 2), Pepperdine (March 5), Long Beach State (March 15), Loyola Marymount (March 25), UC Riverside (April 1), Cal State Fullerton (April 8), UC Santa Barbara (April 19), Cal Poly (May 6) and Cal State Northridge (May 10-11).

On Saturday (March 1), USC and UCLA will play one nonconference game at the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Compton, Calif.

This season, USC will also play UC Irvine twice (Feb. 27 at Irvine and March 12 at Dedeaux Field). Both games will draw more intrigue this season after Mike Gillespie, former USC head coach and father-in-law of current USC head coach Chad Kreuter, was hired at UC Irvine to lead its program earlier this month.

For the 2008 season, the Trojans return freshman All-America shortstop Grant Green and freshman All-America pitcher Brad Boxberger. All but two pitchers from last year’s staff return under the supervision of first-year assistant coach Tom House, including junior left-hander Tommy Milone, who was named Cape Cod Baseball League Pitcher of the Year this summer.

Catcher/pitcher Robert Stock, outfielder Nick Buss and third baseman Roberto Lopez anchor the group of returning position players with the addition of senior first baseman Mike Roskopf, who transferred from North Carolina State after hitting 13 home runs last season for the Wolf Pack.

All 56 games will be broadcast live on usctrojans.com, with live video webcasts courtesy of TrojanTV All-Access for all home games. This season, TrojanTV All-Access will bring an improved broadcast with the usage of four remote-control cameras at Dedeaux Field.

USC Press Release.

For the full schedule

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Thirty-two home games, 23 games against 2007 NCAA Tournament teams, and a game at West End Field in Greenville, SC highlight Clemson’s 56-game, 2008 regular-season baseball schedule, released Wednesday.

The first week of play for all Division I teams has been pushed back to the weekend of February 22-24. Clemson will open the season with a three-game series against Mercer at Doug Kingsmore Stadium that weekend.

After a Wednesday home game against High Point, the Tigers will travel to the South Carolina coast to take on College of Charleston on February 29. The following day, Clemson will take on South Carolina at Sarge Frye Field before facing the Gamecocks again on Sunday, March 2 at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.

After a March 5 home contest versus Wofford, Clemson will play 10 consecutive weekends of conference play, starting with Wake Forest at Winston-Salem, NC from March 7-9. Then for six of the next seven weeks, Clemson will play five games.

The Tigers will play host to North Carolina-Greensboro twice on March 11,12 before Boston College comes to town for a three-game series from March 14-16.

The following week, Clemson will welcome Coastal Carolina and Furman to Doug Kingsmore Stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, in the Tigers’ first night games of the season. From March 21-23, N.C. State will visit Tigertown for a three-game set.

Clemson will play Elon in a two-game midweek series on March 25,26 to conclude a 12-game homestand, then the Tigers will travel to Maryland for a weekend series. It will be the beginning of a stretch of 13 games away from home in a 19-game span.

The Tigers’ annual midweek, home-and-home series with Georgia will begin on Tuesday, April 1 at Athens before the two play at Clemson the following day. Then the Tigers will travel southward to take on Miami (FL) from April 4-6.

After traveling to South Carolina for the third of four regular-season matchups on April 9, Clemson will take on two-time College World Series runner-up North Carolina at Doug Kingsmore Stadium from April 11-13. The two have not met during the regular season since the Tigers opened their 2005 ACC schedule against the Tar Heels at Clemson.

Press Release

For the full schedule

The Bryant Bulldogs were recently accepted into the NEC conference. This is a great move for the Smithfield (RI) school as they have become a Division 2 powerhouse in many different sports. The College Baseball Blog will be making more appearances in Smithfield to take in some NEC baseball. The full release from the NEC is available here and Bryant University here.

LAFAYETTE - Twenty-four home games, in addition to seven contests televised locally on KLAF-TV Channel 17, highlight Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns baseball’s 56-game schedule which was announced Oct. 18 by head coach Tony Robichaux.

Louisiana’s schedule features six teams that participated in the NCAA Regionals a year ago, including NCAA College World Series participant Rice. Last season, the Cajuns, which won the 2007 Sun Belt Conference regular season title, finished with a 45-17 overall record after falling in the NCAA College Station Regional championship game.

The Cajuns open the 2008 season Feb. 22-24 at the Texas-San Antonio Tournament in San Antonio, Texas, against Army, Oral Roberts and Texas-San Antonio. UL then faces the Tulane Green Wave in New Orleans on Feb. 27. UL will open the home portion of its 2008 season with a home tournament, featuring Southern Miss, Miami (Ohio) and New Orleans. The Cajuns will face the Miami Redhawks once and the Southern Miss Golden Eagles twice during the weekend.

After a non-conference tilt on the road with the Houston Cougars on March 4, Louisiana returns home for a four-game homestand featuring a Wednesday contest Southeastern Louisiana (March 5) and a three-game conference series against Arkansas State (March 7-9).

Louisiana’s solid non-conference schedule concludes with Louisiana State (April 29) and a three-game series at NCAA Regional participant Nebraska (May 2-4). The Cajuns’ trip to Baton Rouge marks the first meeting in the series since the 2002 NCAA Regional at Alex Box Stadium.

For the fourth time, Louisiana’s M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field will host the Sun Belt Conference Championship May 21-24. Since joining the Sun Belt, the Cajuns have also hosted the conference tournament in 1997, 2001 and 2003.

Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns will hold their annual Red-White Fall World Series at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field beginning with game one on Thursday, Nov. 1.

Complete schedule

The Notre Dame Baseball program has ended the Blue-Gold series with the Gold team winning two out of the three games. The Notre Dame Media Relations department has recaps of each game which can be read by clicking on the respective games.

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3

The Notre Dame Media Relations department has also released a recap of the summer league action from the ND baseball players. It can be read by clicking here.

The Temple Owls have released their 2008 schedule. They will open the season with a three game set at Bethune Cookman on February 22nd-24th. They will head the next weekend down to Old Dominion for a nice matchup of mid-majors. Temple will play a full A-10 schedule this season with Charlotte, Duquesne, Richmond, Fordham, and Dayton visiting the Owls. The Owls will play road series against URI, St. Joe’s, George Washington, and St. Louis. The A-10 tournament will take place from May 21-24th in Camden NJ. The full schedule is available here.

Doug Kroll of CSTV recently wrote an excellent article abo Presbyterian College upgrading their program from Division II to Division I. Kroll talks about the challenges the school faces on the field and off the field in terms of scheduling. The full article is available here.

Ritch Price the head coach of the Kansas baseball program checked in with Shawn Shroyer of The University Daily Kansan. Price discusses many different topics in the interview from instant replay to metal bats vs wood bats. The full interview is available here.

Here is your update on Fall Baseball Scrimmage Action for October 18th. Click on the links below for more information.

Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
Washington
Xavier
Miami (OH)
Wayne State

The Boston College Eagles finished up fall practice with the Sonny Nictakis World Series. The Eagles played four games with the Gold team taking all four games. The star of the series was Freshman Matt Hamlet who picked up four hits in the series including two for homers in Game 3. Tony Sanchez also picked up two homers in the series with freshman Garrett Smith going 3-3 in Game 1 of the series. A full recap of the games and boxscores are available here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
University of Oklahoma Vice President/Athletics Director Joe Castiglione and head coach Sunny Golloway announced the Sooners’ 56-game 2008 regular season schedule on Thursday.

For the first time since 2003, the Sooners will not open the year in a tournament, but will instead kick off the season in a three-game set at UCLA from Feb. 22-24.

The Sooners will face 10 opponents (24 total games) that participated in last year’s NCAA Tournament, including five 2007 Super Regional teams (UCLA, Rice, Wichita State, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State).

In addition, 29 home games at L. Dale Mitchell Park and three contests against Rice, Houston and Tennessee in the Houston College Classic (Feb. 29 - March 2) highlight the schedule. All three games of the tournament will be played at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas, the home of Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros. Rice is the lone 2007 College World Series participant on the schedule and one of seven teams the Sooners’ will face that won 40 or more games last season.

“Our non-conference schedule will challenge a young and inexperienced Sooner club,” said OU head coach Sunny Golloway. “With the talent we have recruited along with our returning players, the challenges of opening the season at UCLA and the trip to the Houston tournament with games against Rice, Houston and Tennessee, will prepare us for a rugged Big 12 schedule.”

The home opener, slated for Feb. 26-27 against Arkansas Pine Bluff, begins a stretch that will see OU play at L. Dale Mitchell Park for 13 of the next 18 games, including home series against North Dakota State, Western Illinois and Washington State.

The Sooners will also face Dallas Baptist, Northern Illinois, South Florida, UT-Arlington, Wichita State and TCU in non-conference action in 2008.

“There has always been a great debate in whether you should play an easy schedule that helps build your team’s confidence or play a tough schedule and prepare the student-athletes for what lies ahead in conference play,” added Golloway. “At the University of Oklahoma, we have always accepted the challenge of playing the tougher schedule and we feel this year’s slate will do exactly that.”

The 27-game Big 12 schedule begins with Nebraska in Lincoln on March 21-23. The Sooners will also travel to Texas A&M (April 11-13), Texas Tech (April 25-27) and Kansas (May 2-4) during conference play.

In Norman, Oklahoma will host Baylor (March 28-30), Texas (April 4-6), Missouri (April 18-20) and Kansas State (May 9-11).

The Sooners will conclude the regular season with the annual Bedlam Series with Oklahoma State. Game one of the series is set for May 16 in Tulsa at Drillers Stadium. The teams return to Oklahoma City for the final two games of the series slated for May 17 and 18 at the AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

OU Press Release

OU Schedule