VMI baseball releases 2017 schedule

A 10-game March homestand, a home and home with William & Mary and a four-team, season-opening round robin tournament at UNC Wilmington are among the highlights of the 2017 VMI baseball schedule, which was released Tuesday afternoon.

The Keydets open 2017 with an appearance in a four-team, round-robin event at UNC Wilmington (Feb. 17-19). VMI will face Appalachian State twice in the event, as well as George Mason and the host Seahawks. It marks VMI’s second trip to open a season at UNCW in the past four years (2014) – the last time VMI played at UNCW, the Keydets beat a Kentucky team that had current Houston Astros first baseman A.J. Reed hitting cleanup and current Texas Ranger farmhand Kyle Cody pitching.

VMI then goes to Virginia on Feb. 21 before coming home to open a 10-game homestand with a three-game series against the Bison of Bucknell University Feb. 24-26. NCAA Regional qualifier William & Mary comes to town March 1 and is followed in by George Washington March 3-5. Quinnipiac then rounds out the homestand March 10-12.

VMI then goes to Old Dominion for two games on March 14 and 15 and to Elon, N.C. to take on the Elon Phoenix that weekend, March 17-19. It will be just the second meeting all-time between the schools after Elon won the only previous meeting, 5-4, on March 11, 2003.

The Keydets then come home for a single game against Richmond (March 21) before heading to Williamsburg to take on William & Mary the following day. A three-game series against The Citadel (March 24-26) opens SoCon play and two mid-week games follow, as the Keydets take on JMU and Longwood March 28-29 on the road.

After playing just one game at home from March 13-30, the Keydets return home on the final day of March to open a three-game series against Samford at Gray-Minor Stadium. Longwood comes in that Tuesday, April 4, for a mid-week affair, and the home-and-home three-game set with ODU wraps up April 5 in Lexington.

VMI then plays Wofford in a three-game set on the road (April 7-9) and does not have a mid-week game scheduled, following three straight weeks with two such contests. The Keydets then play Mercer on April 13-15, in a series moved up a day to Thursday–Saturday.

The Keydets play VCU at The Diamond in Richmond on April 18 and then go to Cullowhee, N.C. to face Western Carolina (April 21-23).

A three-game non-conference series with Radford follows April 28-30 – the first two games will be played in Radford and the Highlanders come to Gray-Minor Stadium to wrap up the series on April 30.

A single game with VCU (May 2) and a three-game slate with UNCG (May 5-7) follow, and the Keydets go to Furman May 12-14. A single home game with JMU (May 16) and a three-game set with ETSU (May 18-20) wrap up the season at home before the SoCon Tournament, set to begin May 23 in Greenville, S.C.