Baseball unveils 2014 schedule

The Florida Gators baseball team will kick off their 100^th season of play this year when they throw out the opening pitch against Maryland on Friday, February 14. It’s a Valentines Day opening for a team that will look to bounce back from a disappointing 29-30 season last year where the Gators went 0-3 in postseason play.

Kevin O’Sullivan’s squad will play 34-of-56 games in front of a home crowd at McKethan Stadium where the Gators are 175-50 (.778) under O’Sullivan.

Following the three game swing with Maryland to kick off the season, the Gators will host UNF and UCF before hitting the road to take on rival Miami in Coral Gables.

The Gators will also host Florida Gulf Coast, Illinois, UCONN and Illinois State before getting into their conference schedule by hosting Arkansas (March 14-16).

The series against Arkansas is the first of five SEC series that fans can come out and watch their Gators play an SEC opponent at home and precedes games with LSU (March 28-30), Georgia (April 18-20), Missouri (April 25-27) and the defending SEC Champion, Vanderbilt (May 9-11).

Rounding out the rest of the conference slate, the Gators will travel to Texas A&M (March 21-30), Kentucky (April 4-6), South Carolina (April 11-13), Alabama (May 2-4) and Tennessee (May 15-17).

Mixed in throughout the season are three mid-week games against archrival Florida State. The Gators and Noles will play in Gainesville on March 18, at the Baseball Grounds in Jacksonville on March 25 and for the last time in Tallahassee on April 8.

In typical O’Sullivan fashion, the Gators will play one of the toughest schedules of any team in the country again in 2014. 22 of the Gators opponents finished ranked in the top-30 in the country in RPI last season.

Important Postseason Dates

May 20-25: SEC Tournament (Hoover, Alabama)

May 30- June 2: NCAA Regionals (16 sites)

June 6-9: NCAA Super Regionals (8 sites)

June 14-24: College World Series (Omaha, Nebraska)

Tickets for the 2014 season go on sale Tuesday, October 8.