Baseball: Official Practice Begins Friday
January 28, 2010 12:14 PM | General
January 28, 2010
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| Greg Van Zant |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University baseball team begins official practice for the 2010 season on Friday, Jan. 29, at the Caperton Indoor Facility, adjacent to Milan Puskar Stadium. Friday’s practice is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
Over the next three weeks leading up to the season-opener on Feb. 19, WVU is scheduled to conduct 18 practices. Every team in collegiate baseball has a uniform start date set for that day.
“Every upcoming practice is extremely important,” says coach Greg Van Zant, who enters his 16th season as head coach at WVU. “Our players will be working extremely hard and efficiently in order to face some of our challenging opponents this season, which includes several difficult teams in the early going.”
According to the Baseball America preseason poll released on Wednesday, the Mountaineers are slated to face three teams ranked in the preseason Top 20. WVU opens the season at No. 12 Coastal Carolina, faces No. 13 Louisville at home from April 16-18 and gets another early test at No. 18 East Carolina on March 6 as part of the Keith LeClair Classic.
WVU also faces Southeastern Conference opponent Kentucky in its second game of the season on Feb. 20 at 11 a.m. in Conway, S.C., as part of the Caravelle Resort Tournament. The Wildcats brought in the nation’s sixth-best recruiting class this past year, according to Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
Some of WVU’s other early-season nonconference opponents include Virginia Tech, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue, Western Carolina and Illinois. Reigning NCAA qualifier Bethune-Cookman comes to Morgantown for a two-game series on May 11-12, and WVU visits Atlantic Coast Conference rival Maryland on April 7.
The Mountaineers return four all-Big East performers from the 2009 season, including Preseason Big East Player of the Year Jedd Gyorko, all-Big East third-team member Dan DiBartolomeo, all-Big East first-team pitcher Jarryd Summers and all-Big East third-team pitcher Chris Enourato.
