East Carolina Baseball Announces 2006 Schedule
November 10, 2005 | Baseball
Nov. 10, 2005
GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Thirty-five home games at Clark-LeClair Stadium, including the Third Annual Keith LeClair Classic, highlight the 2006 baseball schedule announced Thursday by head baseball coach Billy Godwin.
The Pirates will play 23 games against eight different teams that participated in the 2005 NCAA Tournament, which include three Super Regional teams and one College World Series participant in Tulane.
East Carolina will open the 2006 season Friday, Feb. 10 when the Pirates host Maryland for a three-game tilt, followed by three games with the College of Charleston (Feb. 17-19) to open up a 14-game home stand. Sandwiched between a pair of Duke contests (Feb. 21 and 28), the Pirates will host the annual Keith LeClair Classic (Feb. 24-26), which honors former ECU head coach Keith LeClair. Atlantic Coast Conference members N.C. State and Virginia Tech will join ECU, UNC Wilmington, West Virginia and Penn State in the three-day event.
In the month of March, the Pirates will host 2004 NCAA Tournament participant Stony Brook (Mar. 3-5), then head out West to California for their first road trip of the season against 2004 National Champion Cal State Fullerton (Mar. 10-23). ECU will play the second of three games against in-state rival UNC Wilmington on the road March 15, before wrapping up the series in Greenville on March 22.
Marist College comes to Greenville on March 17 for a weekend series before the Pirates start Conference USA play the following weekend in Houston, Texas against new C-USA member and national power Rice. The Pirates' home conference schedule includes series' against Houston, Marshall, Tulane and UAB. Road series, in addition to Rice, include UCF, Southern Miss and Memphis. The 2006 Conference USA Tournament will be hosted by Rice in Houston, May 24-28.
Although the Pirates will not face N.C. State in the Keith LeClair Classic, the two teams will square off three times in 2006 with ECU hosting the Wolfpack on April 12 and the Pirates traveling west to Raleigh for a pair of games on March 29 and April 18.
Rounding out the non-conference schedule, ECU will host the University of Albany for three games (April 14-16) and will play a home-and-home series with Coastal Carolina on May 10 in Greenville and then on May 16 in Conway, S.C.
"I'm really excited about the schedule we have in place this season," said Godwin. "It will be a tough challenge, especially playing powerhouse teams like Cal State, Rice and Tulane along with N.C State, Coastal Carolina and College of Charleston. All of those teams played in the post-season a year ago and if we truly want to compete with the opportunity to go to Omaha, then we need to play this caliber of schedule."
The Pirates, who made their seventh consecutive trip to NCAA Regional play last year, return 15 lettermen from a team that finished fourth in C-USA. Tickets for the 2006 baseball season are available online at www.ecupirates.com or by calling the ECU ticket office at (252) 328-4500.
