East Carolina Baseball Announces 2007 Schedule
September 25, 2006 | Baseball
Sept. 25, 2006
2007 Complete Schedule l ECU Invitational Schedule l Keith LeClair Classic
GREENVILLE, N.C. - A school-record 38 home games at Lewis Field at Clark-LeClair Stadium, including a pair of home tournaments, the ECU Invitational and the Fourth Annual Keith LeClair Classic, highlight the 2006 baseball schedule announced Monday by head baseball coach Billy Godwin.
The Pirates will play 28 games against 11 different teams that participated in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, which include three College World Series participants in Cal State Fullerton (March 9-11), Rice (April 6-8) and North Carolina (April 24 and May 9).
East Carolina will open the 2007 season Friday, Feb. 9 when they play host to Liberty for a three-game tilt. The Pirates will get their first road test early in the season when they travel to California to face UCLA, an early favorite to be one of the eight teams in the 2007 College World Series, for a three-game series beginning Feb. 16.
Closing out the month of February, ECU will host the first of two consecutive tournaments when they welcome St. John's, Washington and Duke to the East Carolina Invitational.
The annual Keith LeClair Classic, which honors former ECU head coach Keith LeClair, highlights the Pirates' March schedule when they welcome Pepperdine, N.C. State and Western Carolina the weekend of March 2-4. Also making appearances during the Pirates' 21 game home stand, which begins against Campbell on Feb. 21, will be N.C. A&T, Cal State Fullerton, Radford (Mar. 13-14), Michigan (Mar. 16-18), High Point (Mar. 21), UNC Wilmington (Mar. 28) and the first Conference USA action of the year against Memphis (Mar. 23-25).
ECU will make the first of four C-USA road trips in the closing days of March when they head to New Orleans to square off against Tulane (Mar. 30 - Apr. 1). The Pirates will also travel to Marshall (Apr. 13-15), Houston (May 4-6) and UAB (May 17-19) in league action.
Coming to Greenville for conference play will be 2003 National Champion Rice (Apr. 6-8), as well as Southern Miss (Apr. 27-29) and UCF (May 11-13). The 2007 C-USA Tournament will be played in New Orleans and hosted by Tulane (May 23-27).
Rounding out the non-conference schedule, ECU will host Savannah State (Apr. 20-22), will play a home-and-home series with in-state rivals North Carolina, N.C. State and UNC-Wilmington.
"We are excited about putting together one of the most competitive regular season schedules that East Carolina has played in recent years," said Goldwin. "Included in our 38 home games are seven games with teams that were in Omaha in 2006. Our goal at East Carolina is to play teams that will give us the best opportunity to compete in post-season play. Both our Conference USA and non-conference schedule certainly gives us that opportunity."
The Pirates return 17 lettermen from a team that finished sixth in C-USA and had an overall record of 33-26.
