The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss Announces 2006 Baseball Schedule
8/16/2005 | Baseball
Aug. 16, 2005
OXFORD, Miss. - Coming off a record-breaking season that saw the Ole Miss Rebel baseball team post the most wins in school history (48) and host the first Super Regional, Ole Miss begins preparations for the upcoming season as head coach Mike Bianco announced the 2006 schedule on Tuesday.
Ole Miss will host 34 home dates on the 56-game schedule, facing off against NCAA Tournament participants in 29 of the games on the year. Included in the list of NCAA Participants will be several Southeastern Conference foes, but also non-conference match-ups with Illinois-Chicago and fan-favorite Maine from the 2005 Oxford Regional.
"We're excited about this schedule and feel confident that it continues our tradition of bringing quality teams here to showcase baseball for our fans," said Bianco, who enters his sixth season at the helm of the program. "The chance to get a program like Maine to come back to Oxford was something we were fortunate enough to have fall into place. It will be a lot of fun to play a good team that became a favorite of our fans during the Regional this past season.
"We think this schedule presents a good challenge for us as we continue to grow as a program and push to go even further than we did in the 2005 season," Bianco continued. "We open up with a good slate to begin the season and then travel to face UCLA before jumping into conference play. That's a good test for us on a competitive schedule."
The Rebels will open up the season with 14-straight at home as Ole Miss will host St. Louis (Feb. 17-19), Samford (Feb. 21-22), Maine (Feb. 24-26), Arkansas State (Feb. 28), Illinois-Chicago (Mar. 3-5) and Murray State (Mar. 7-8), before hitting the road for the west coast and a three-game series with the Bruins (Mar. 10-12).
Ole Miss will travel for a single game at Arkansas State (Mar. 14) and then jump into the 30-game Southeastern Conference schedule with a home series against Vanderbilt (Mar. 17-20). The Rebels will host the Commodores, Auburn (Apr. 7-9), LSU (Apr. 21-23), Tennessee (Apr. 28-30) and Arkansas (May 12-14) in conference, while traveling to play Alabama (Mar. 24-26), Georgia (Mar. 31-Apr. 2), South Carolina (Apr. 14-16), Kentucky (Apr. 5-7) and close out the season at Mississippi State (May 19-21). Florida was replaced on the schedule by Kentucky for the 2006 season per the rotating schedule established by the Southeastern Conference.
Also on the schedule for the Rebels is a non-conference match-up with Mississippi State (Apr. 11) in the 24th playing of the Mayor's Trophy game and a two-game set with in-state foe Southern Mississippi (Mar. 28/Apr. 4) that brings the Golden Eagles to Oxford for a single game and will see both teams face-off in Pearl, Miss., for the other game of the season.
Also scattered throughout the conference slate are non-conference match-ups with Memphis (Mar. 21/May 16), Southeastern Louisiana (Apr. 18-19) and Nicholls State (May 2).
In the 2005 season, Ole Miss posted a school record 48 wins as the Rebels went 48-20 and claimed the Western Division Championship with LSU. Ole Miss then advanced to the SEC Championship game at the conference tournament, defeating regular-season champion Florida twice in the process to reach the final game. The Rebels then hosted the second-straight regional in Oxford, advancing to host a Super Regional for the first time in program history.