As fall turns to winter, and with spring just around the corner, Longwood head baseball coach Chad Oxendine released a 53 game slate that features 11 opponents that will travel to Buddy Bolding Stadium in Farmville.

The schedule features plenty of tests in the form of top-60 RPI opponents. The Lancers meet 57th ranked VCU twice during the season, as well as 33rd and 31st ranked NC State and Liberty, respectively. In addition, the team plays number 24 Virginia and the fourth highest RPI team in the country, North Carolina Chapel-Hill. Big South foe and last year’s conference champion Campbell also makes an appearance in the top 60 of RPI rankings as they finished at 59th in the country.

“With fall ball wrapping up soon we feel we’ve prepared very well as a team for this upcoming season,” Oxendine said. “We’ve pushed ourselves to become better baseball players and are ready for our tough schedule ahead both in and out of conference play. Our team is eager to see how we lineup against some of the best competition in the region and begin pushing for a spot in the Big South playoffs.”

The Lancers will play host to 11 opponents this season, good for 25 games in total at Buddy Bolding Stadium. Longwood will be home their first two weekends of the season as Mount St.Mary’s (Feb. 17-19) and Delaware State (Feb. 24-26) make the journey to Farmville. The team’s gauntlet of a start to midweek matchups include away trips to Virginia, North Carolina, NC State, and Liberty.

Longwood then opens up a five-game, six-day road trip that includes a three game series against Bethune Cookman, in Daytona Beach, Florida (Mar. 3-5), followed by a two game midweek series against the College of Charleston (Mar. 7-8).

The Lancers finish off non-conference series play when Iona (Mar.10-12) comes to town, followed by Richmond (Mar.15).

Longwood then has an eight-game road trip to open up conference play with weekend series against Gardner-Webb (Mar.17-19) and UNC Asheville (Mar. 24-26). Included in the road trip are consecutive Tuesday’s of traveling to Richmond to take on VCU (Mar. 21) and the University of Richmond (Mar. 28).

Longwood then hosts George Mason (Mar. 29) before hosting their first conference series against High Point, (Mar.31-Apr. 2).

The Lancers are then back on the road for five games, which includes a three-game series against USC Upstate (Apr. 6-8) in Spatanburg, S.C, prior to Easter. On either side of the conference series, Longwood travels to Norfolk State (Apr. 4) as well as to George Mason (Apr. 11).

Longwood then host last year’s Big South champs in Campbell University, (Apr. 14-16) and Norfolk State (Apr. 18) in the midweek following.

The Lancers then go on the road to Charleston for the second time this season to play Charleston Southern (Apr. 21-23), and host Radford (Apr. 28- 30) as Big South play reaches the business end of the season.

Longwood then plays Duke University (May 7) in a double header before they wrap up non-conference play all together when VCU (May 9th) comes to Farmville.

The team finishes the season with consecutive weekends of Big South play. First, they’ll travel to Clinton, S.C to play the Blue Hose of Presbyterian (May 12-14) and wrap up the season at home against Winthrop (May 18-20).

Longwood returns 24 players from a season ago and welcomes 13 newcomers: nine freshman and four transfers

The Big South playoffs only include the top four teams this season and are set to begin May 24th with the Championship game slated on May 28th.