Crimson Tide Releases 2011 Baseball Schedule
10/29/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Oct. 29, 2010
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -
The University of Alabama baseball team released its 2011 schedule Friday and the upcoming season is highlighted by trips to professional ballparks and visits from past College World Series participants, including the last two NCAA Champions.
The Crimson Tide faces an extremely challenging schedule, but it is not something the squad hasn't seen before. Last season Alabama had the second-toughest schedule in the country and this year the team will be challenged by some of the top teams in college baseball yet again.
"We'll face a lot of teams that appeared in the NCAA Regionals last year," UA head coach Mitch Gaspard said. "You have the defending national champions (South Carolina) coming in here. All the conference games are extremely tough. Once again, we feel like it's a real challenging schedule for us this spring."
The Tide begins the 2011 campaign Friday, Feb. 18 in Tuscaloosa with a three-game series Alcorn State. A week later the team heads to Mobile, Ala., for the South Alabama Tournament Feb. 25-27. Immediately following that, the Tide faces 2009 College World Series participant Southern Mississippi at home in a Wednesday showdown on March 2.
Alabama begins a tough stretch in March with a pair of non-conference games against SEC foes at neutral sites. That stretch begins against Georgia on March 9 at Coolray Stadium, the home of the Gwinnett Braves, the Triple-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves followed by a visit to Riverwalk Stadium, the home of the Montgomery Biscuits, the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, to face the Auburn Tigers. The Tide will also face in-state opponent UAB at Regions Park in Hoover, home of the Birmingham Barons, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox on March 22.
The Tide begins SEC play on Friday, March 18, when it travels to Oxford to take on Mississippi for a weekend series. SEC play at Sewell-Thomas Stadium begins Friday, March 25, as the Tide welcomes Kentucky for the weekend. As the team heads into May it faces a tough eight-game SEC stretch. UA welcomes the 2009 NCAA Champion, LSU, to the friendly confines of Sewell-Thomas Stadium starting May 6 for a three-game series. The team then heads to Auburn to face its in-state rival for the final road series of the season. The Tide hosts South Carolina, college baseball's 2010 NCAA Champion, to close out the regular season May 19-21.
"The league is so tough that you just have to go one game at a time," Gaspard said. "The biggest thing for us in the front part of the season is that we need to try to find that chemistry as a team. You can't always determine how the ball's going to bounce but we can certainly determine how we approach the game mentally each night."
Season ticket plans for all 33 games at Sewell-Thomas Stadium start at just $60. For more information on season and individual tickets, visit rolltide.com or call 1-877-TIDETIX.
