Diamond Deacs to host Duke on ESPNU on April 9th at 7 PM

With college baseball just around the corner ESPN released its official schedule yesterday of games it will televise this season.

The ACC really got shafted overall with the number of games on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU, and it definitely shows why having an ACC Network moving forward would be beneficial, especially for the exposure of non-revenue sports.

Wake Forest got exactly one nationally televised game, and that will come on April 9th in Winston-Salem against the Duke Blue Devils on ESPNU.

While I certainly would have liked more than one nationally televised game for a team that finished 11th in the final polls last season and was one game away from reaching Omaha, this will serve as great exposure for the newly renovated David F. Ballpark.

The Wake Forest baseball schedule was released in September, and features 30 home games, as well as 30 games in total against teams that made the NCAA Tournament last season.

The season kicks off on February 16th with the Wake Forest Tournament held in Winston. The Deacs welcome Georgetown, Navy, and Gardner-Webb to the Couch, and will take on G-W twice on that Sunday.

As always the non-conference schedule will provide a lot of tough tests due to the strength of North Carolina & South Carolina baseball teams. There are two games against Super Regional team Davidson, a game at 2016 National Champs Coastal Carolina, and also a handful of games against App State, UNC-G, and Charlotte.

In conference the Deacs will have an outstanding home slate, hosting: Florida State, Louisville, Clemson, and Virginia.

The Deacs are looking to head to its third straight NCAA Tournament, where last year it advanced to the Super Regionals and nearly made it to Omaha for the College World Series before falling to eventual national champions Florida.

While there are a lot of bats to replace in the lineup with the departures of Stuart Fairchild and Gavin Sheets, Wake returns Preseason All-American Johnny Aiello, as well as dynamic pitchers Chris Farish and Griffin Roberts (who has been converted from closer to Friday night starter).

Overall I think the Deacs will have another successful season, but it will likely not be primarily due to the home run and high offensive output like it was last year.

Bart will be writing an in-depth preview of the baseball team to publish later this week and we will be putting forth a huge effort to intensify the coverage of the baseball team, as it deserves the coverage based on what it has done recently under head coach Tom Walter.