After getting the season underway last weekend, the Illinois State baseball team will be back at it again this weekend as they head to Nashville, Tenn., to take part in the Music City Classic. Illinois State will play David Lipscomb on Friday, No. 16 Vanderbilt on Saturday and Belmont on Sunday. Boston College and UConn will also be in town to play the same teams as the Redbirds.
Its good to keep playing and to get in the flow of the season finally, said head coach Jim Brownlee, who saw his team go 1-2 last weekend against Stetson. We had two great days of practice and this week just flew by.
Each of the games will be played at the home field of each respective university. Friday Kitt Kopach (0-1) will make the start against David Lipscomb (5-1) at Ken Dugan Field at 2:00 p.m. Senior Ned Schauff (0-0) will take the ball on Saturday as Illinois State and nationally-ranked Vanderbilt (3-0) play at Charles Hawkins Field at 12:00 p.m. Finally Dan Frega will get the nod to start against Belmont (3-1) on Sunday at Greer Stadium at 1:00 p.m.
This is a great tournament because you get to play three quality teams in three days, said Brownlee. We will see two teams from the Atlantic Sun and obviously Vanderbilt is a great team. The combined record of our opponents this weekend is 11-2, so it will be very good competition.
Last weekend was a good start for us because we were able to pick up a win and we got to see a lot of the guys on the trip play, Brownlee added. We were able to answer some of the questions that the coaching staff had and we will continue to do that throughout this preseason part of our schedule. We play 20 non-conference games before we open up the league so we will continue to use these early games to establish some consistency in our lineup.
Fans wishing to follow along with the Redbirds will have numerous options to do so this weekend. As always, Gametracker, an internet-based live-stats feed will be available. Also, each of the Nashville schools will be offering webcasts so fans can listen to the game. Additionally, their will be a live video feed of Saturdays game with Vanderbilt available online. There is no cost to use any of these services, and each of the links can be accessed by going to the Illinois State baseball schedule at www.redbirds.org and clicking on the appropriate link.
