It’s opening day for the Flames as they will begin their 2015 slate of games with 19th ranked (Baseball America) Kennesaw State this afternoon. In honor opening day, we’ll take a look at what the Flames’ schedule holds this year.
Non-Conference:
Liberty will open up it’s non-conference schedule with a duo of tournaments. This weekend the Flames will participate in the Atlanta challenge with a matchup against Kennesaw State this afternoon and a double header with Georgia State tomorrow. Liberty won’t be afforded the luxury of any warm-up games as Kennesaw State is a team that made it to the super regionals in the NCAA tournament last season, and comes in with a ranking of 19th this year.
The Flames will then travel to Greenville, North Carolina to take on Michigan, St. Johns, and ECU in the Keith LeClair Classic before taking on in state rival Old Dominion (a team that had votes to be ranked) in Norfolk on February 3. Liberty will host its first home game on February 27th against Bryant.
Liberty will be facing off with a plethora of ACC foes this year. The Flames were supposed to take on Georgia Tech this Sunday, but that game has been canceled due to inclement weather. They will have matchups against Duke, Virginia Tech, UVA, and UNC.
Other notable non-conference matchups include Big Ten opponents, Maryland, Penn State, and Michigan, Big 12 opponent, West Virginia, and in-state matchups against ODU, Virginia Tech, UVA, JMU, and Richmond.
This will surely be an exciting slate of non-conference games, with plenty of exciting home matchups for Flames fans to enjoy.
Big South Conference:
Liberty earned the respect of the Big South last year after going a ridiculous 23-3 in conference, on the way to the program’s best regular season. This helped them to a 1st place Big South preseason ranking, but Alex Close told us the Flames can’t let it go to their head. “We’ll probably go in picked to win it, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s baseball, any team can win on any given day.”
With that said, it’s also worth noting that Liberty’s Big South draw didn’t do that many favors this year. They will face all of the top teams in the Big South (excluding themselves), with Winthrop, picked 6th, and UNCA, picked last, being the exclusions from Liberty’s Big South Schedule.
| Rk – School (first-place votes) | Points |
| 1 – Liberty (8) | 116 |
| 2 – High Point (2) | 98 |
| 3 – Coastal Carolina | 95 |
| 4 – Campbell | 89 |
| 5 – Radford (1) | 84 |
| 6 – Winthrop | 69 |
| T-7 – Charleston Southern | 51 |
| T-7 – Gardner-Webb | 51 |
| 9 – Longwood | 32 |
| 10 – Presbyterian College | 28 |
| 11 – UNC Asheville | 13 |
Liberty will kick off conference play on March 20th, with a series against Radford. They Flames’ first conference home series will be against Presbyterian, with the first game on March 27th.
Notable conference matchups include an away series at arch rival Coastal Carolina beginning on May 8th, and a home series against 2nd picked High Point in the last weekend of the season, a series that could determine the Big South regular season champs.
To check out Liberty’s schedule in its entirety, click here.
