Oct. 11, 2007
2008 Schedule (PDF)
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University Park, Pa. - Penn State head baseball coach Robbie Wine today announced the schedule for his Nittany Lions for the 2008 baseball season. Penn State, which went an impressive 17-6 last year in its first season at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, is scheduled to play 23 more home games at their new facility in the 2008 season.
Penn State will play just its first 12 games on the road to start the season before returning to Medlar Field at Lubrano Park for its first home series of the year, which will be March 21-23 against Lehigh for a three-game series. After that, the Nittany Lions will only play two more non-conference games on the road, both in state, and will only need to leave Pennsylvania for its four road Big Ten series.
"This year's schedule is challenging and will once again test the depth of our pitching staff," said Wine. "If we have success it will prepare us for postseason play. The first five weekends will allow us to develop our young talent and help identify roles prior to entering a tough Big Ten schedule."
This year will mark the first year of the new NCAA mandated uniform starting date. In previous seasons, there was no uniform starting date, meaning several teams could start the season earlier than others. This year, all Division I teams are not allowed to start the season any earlier than Friday, February 22, meaning the majority of the teams Penn State plays in the early part of the season will have already played roughly the same number of games that Penn State has as well.
The Nittany Lions will open the season with a three-game series at High Point, out of the Big South Conference, February 22-24 in High Point, N.C. This year will mark the fourth straight season that the Nittany Lions will play in North Carolina on either the first or second weekend of the season. Penn State played at No. 1 North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. the second weekend of last season, knocking off the Tar Heels in one game. In 2006, the Nits played in the Keith LeClair Classic hosted by East Carolina in Greenville, N.C. the second weekend of the season while in 2005, Penn State opened the season by playing in North Carolina the first two weekends of the year, in Charlotte the first weekend and then in Wilmington the second weekend.
The second weekend of the 2007 season will see the Nittany Lions play in a tournament in Dothan, Ala. hosted by Troy, the Screentech Wiregrass Classic. The Lions will take on the host Trojans to open the tournament on Friday, February 29 and then will play Kennesaw State on Saturday and Wake Forest on Sunday. All games in the Screentech Wiregrass Classic will be played at Northcutt Field in Dothan, a facility originally built mainly for this annual tournament.
The annual spring break trip for the Nittany Lions will take them back to Florida in 2008 as they will play in the Papa John's Palm Beach Challenge in West Palm Beach, Fla. the week of March 9-15. Penn State will play six games in seven days beginning on Sunday, March 9 and ending on Saturday, March 15 with an off day on Wednesday, March 12 built in. Those games will be held at the Santaluces Sports Complex, a four-field complex that was the former minor league spring training home of the Montreal Expos. The opponents and game times for that week will be announced at a later date.
Following spring break, the Nittany Lions will open their home schedule against Lehigh with a matinee contest at 3:35 p.m. on Friday, March 21. That will be followed by two 1:05 games on Saturday and Sunday.
Penn State opens the Big Ten schedule on the road the following weekend at Ohio State the weekend of March 28-30. After a midweek game against Bucknell on Wednesday, April 2, the Nittany Lions will host their first home Big Ten series of the year against defending Big Ten champion and NCAA Super Regional participant Michigan April 4-6. The Nittany Lions took four out of five games from the Wolverines last year, including knocking them out of the Big Ten Tournament on their own home field in Ann Arbor, Mich.
After that, the Nittany Lions will travel to Pittsburgh for a midweek game against the Panthers and then to West Lafayette, Ind. for a series at Purdue. Penn State will then host a seven-game homestand featuring a midweek game against Akron on Tuesday, April 15. A four-game series with Indiana the weekend of April 18-20, which is also Blue-White Weekend, continues the homestand and the Nittany Lions will also host LaSalle and Youngstown State in midweek contests to wrap up the homestand.
After a series at Illinois and a road midweek game at Villanova on Tuesday, April 30, the Nittany Lions will host Michigan State and Iowa in their final two home series of the year the first two weekends of May. The season will wrap up with a four-game series at Minnesota that will be held Thursday-Saturday, May 15-17 as all of the final Big Ten series of the year in 2008 will be held in a Thursday-Saturday format.
Once again, the Big Ten Tournament will be held at the home stadium of the first place team and will be on Wednesday-Saturday, May 21-24.
Season tickets for the 2008 Penn State baseball season can be reserved now by calling the State College Spikes ticket office at (814) 272-1711 or 1-877-SPIKES.