Womens’ basketball to face UNC
The Liberty Lady Flames were awarded with a 13 seed in the Greensboro Region of the 2015 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Liberty will face 4 seed North Carolina on Saturday at 11AM on UNC’s home floor. LU is making their 16th NCAA Tournament appearance, and have been eliminated in the first round of the tournament in all but one year. This will be Liberty’s 3rd all-time meeting with North Carolina with the Tar Heels leading the series 2-0.
Baseball update
Liberty is on a hot streak entering the conference opener this weekend against Radford. The Flames have won 7 straight including a 12-5 win at Virginia Tech on Tuesday. Becker Sankey led the way going 3/5 with 2 homeruns, 5 RBIs, and 3 runs scored. Pitcher Michael Stafford went 7 innings only giving up 1 run while recording 7 strikeouts. The 3 game series with the Highlanders begins this afternoon at 5pm.
Spring practice underway
Liberty’s spring practice began this week with the biggest news being J.T. Bradwell’s suspension. His absence leaves a noticeable hole in the quarterback depth chart since Javan Shashaty hasn’t returned as well as Coach Gill’s decision to not sign a quarterback in the most recent class. It sounds like it is an academic issue that will hopefully get sorted quickly. Also of note is the absence of 4 offensive lineman from the spring roster: Dylan Brucki, Ethan Callison, Cody Gochenouer, and Kris Wilson. We’ll keep you updated on how practice is going all Spring as the Flames prepare for the April 11 Spring Game and the 2015 season.
Updates to schedule
Liberty’s homecoming will be on October 24th when the Flames face Kennesaw State. That’s as late a date as I can remember homecoming being in recent memory. Of course, this is due to the 2015 JMU game being called off. It sounds like the September 26th date (vs JMU previously) will be filled with a road game leaving the Flames with just 5 home games for the 2015 season. The last time Liberty had less than 6 home games was in 2010 when Williams Stadium was being expanded.
One name that has generated some buzz online is Southern Illinois. They currently have an opening on 9/26, but would likely require a home date as they only have 4 scheduled. The Salukis are members of the MVC and finished the 2014 season with a 6-6 record.
Celebration Bowl
Announced this week is the Celebration Bowl where the MEAC and SWAC conference champions will meet in this newly created game beginning with the 2015 season. It’s interesting to note as currently the MEAC champ gets an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. This will be a story to watch during the offseason to see what the FCS does with its open spot. Maybe it becomes an extra at-large spot? Or the playoff field could be trimmed from its current 24 teams? Another twist to this story, is perhaps a MEAC member or two is not pleased with these developments and looks to leave the conference. It would make sense for the Big South to be at the top of the list for a MEAC member with a wandering eye.
Other sports
- The softball team opened conference play by taking 2 of 3 against Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs. The Lady Flames are already halfway to last season’s conference win total of 4. They also opened the brand new Liberty Softball Stadium on Thursday against Rider and will play a total of 5 games this weekend in the new ballpark.
- The women’s lacrosse team beat George Mason, 11-7, on Wednesday. The Lady Flames are 2-6 with conference play beginning on April 4th.
FlameFans thread of the week
Anytime Jerry Jr stops by it makes for the thread of the week! He did just that in the Falwell: Major LU expansion in the works thread. See what he had to say about all the campus construction.
