JMU baseball announces 2015 schedule

Twenty-nine home games and five opponents from the 2014 NCAA Tournament highlight the 2015 James Madison baseball schedule, as released by Head Coach Spanky McFarland on Thursday afternoon.

The 56-game slate will see the Dukes play outside of the state of Virginia just 13 times on the season, with nine of those contests coming during Colonial Athletic Association play. JMU will also have 21 contests against teams that finished in the top 100 of the final NCAA RPI poll of the 2014 season.

“When you look at this schedule, the first thing you notice is that we have more home games than we did last year and, weather permitting, that should help us,” McFarland said. “Whereas last year’s schedule was full of big-time opponents on the road, this season will have a lot of good to very good mid-major opponents.”

After starting their season in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, for a game against Buffalo (Feb. 13) and two at Gardner-Webb (Feb. 13-14), the Dukes return to Eagle Field at Veterans Memorial Park for 13 straight contests.

JMU will take on Longwood (Feb. 17) in a mid-week contest before welcoming Monmouth (Feb 20-22) for a three-game weekend set, as well as Quinnipiac (Feb. 27-March 1) and Canisius (March 6-8) for a pair of four-game series.

The Dukes then hit the road for a matchup at VMI (March 11) and the PK5 Classic in Richmond, Virginia, in honor of long-time VCU head baseball coach Paul Keyes, where they will face Minnesota (March 13), VCU (March 14) and Monmouth (March 15). After a contest at George Mason (March 18), JMU will kick off its CAA slate with a three-game series at Elon (March 20-22).

In addition to the Phoenix, JMU will also travel to Northeastern (April 10-12), William and Mary (April 17-19) and UNCW (May 14-16) for conference road weekends, while matching up with College of Charleston (March 27-29), Delaware (April 3-5), Towson (April 24-26) and Hofstra (May 8-10) in Harrisonburg.

Out of conference, JMU will travel to defending national runner-up Virginia on April 8 and face off against in-state rival Richmond for the first time since 2007 with a road trip on April 14.

The Dukes have home-and-home midweek series scheduled with Longwood, Maryland, George Mason and VMI and will split a three-game set with Radford (May 1-3), with the teams facing off in Radford for the first two games before returning to Harrisonburg for Sunday’s contest.

“We have a young, but very talented team this year,” McFarland said. “Playing more games at home will really help the young kids to do well in their academics and also to stay strong throughout the season on the baseball field.”