East Carolina Baseball Announces 2005 Schedule
December 08, 2004 | Baseball
GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Thirty-three games in East Carolina's new baseball stadium, including the second annual Keith LeClair Classic, highlight the 2005 baseball schedule announced Wednesday by head baseball coach Randy Mazey.
The Pirates, coming off their most successful year in the history of the program, will play 23 games against 12 different teams that participated in the 2004 NCAA tournament.
East Carolina will open the 2005 season with nine consecutive road games in the month of February due to the final phases of the construction on the new stadium. The Pirates will officially begin the season Feb. 11 with a three-game series at College of Charleston. The following weekend, ECU will travel to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for the Baseball at the Beach Tournament, featuring host Coastal Carolina, Clemson and West Virginia. ECU will return to Charleston the following weekend for The Citadel Tournament to face the Mountaineers again, along with in-state rival N.C. State and The Citadel.
The Pirates will begin their home schedule in their new ballpark on March 4-6, when they host the second annual Keith LeClair Classic. The tournament, which honors former ECU head coach Keith LeClair, features four teams that advanced to NCAA regional play last year, Arizona State, Georgia, North Carolina and the Pirates, as well as two teams from the Big 10 Conference - Michigan and Ohio State.
ECU will host Navy on March 11 for a weekend series before starting Conference USA play the following week in New Orleans against C-USA regular season runner-up Tulane. The Pirates' home conference schedule includes series' against Charlotte, Southern Miss, Memphis, Cincinnati and Saint Louis. Road games, in addition to Tulane, include TCU, Louisville, South Florida and UAB. Due to the rotating conference schedule, the Pirates will not face Houston this season. The 2005 Conference USA Tournament will be held in Hattiesburg, Miss. May 25-29.
Although the Pirates will not face North Carolina in the Keith LeClair Classic, the two teams will play a home and home series this season. East Carolina will host the Tar Heels on April 13 in Greenville, while the Pirates will travel to Chapel Hill on May 17. The Pirates travel to N.C. State on April 6 while the Wolfpack will visit Greenville on April 20, matching the two teams up three times during the regular season. ECU will face 2004 Kinston Regional runner-up UNC Wilmington in 2004 this season, first on March 16 in Wilmington and a week later on March 23 in Greenville.
"This is the toughest schedule that we have played here at East Carolina," head coach Randy Mazey said. "Due to the of the level of competition we are up against, we'll really need to play our best baseball all year long."
The Pirates, who were 2004 C-USA regular season champions with a conference record of 25-5, return 17 lettermen to a team which won a school-record 51 games and finished as high as No. 8 nationally. Tickets for the 2005 baseball season are available online at www.ecupirates.com or by calling the ECU ticket office at (252) 328-4500.
