Penn baseball unveils 2018 schedule
The University of Pennsylvania baseball team will open the 2018 campaign at Northwestern State and then embark on an eight-game stretch in South Carolina before returning to open the home portion of their schedule on March 17 with a contest against Fairleigh Dickinson.

The Quakers are scheduled to play 15 home games across 11 dates at Meiklejohn Stadium this spring. Penn finished 12-4 at home last season.

Non-conference highlights include a mid-week contest against Lehigh in March and a first-round Liberty Bell Classic clash with Big 5 rival Saint Joseph's. The club will also play single contests against La Salle, Villanova, Delaware, and Monmouth.

The Ivy League will do away with the two division format in 2018, meaning each of the eight clubs will now face each other three times with a doubleheader on Saturday and a single contest on Sunday. The two teams atop the conference at the end of the season will face off in a best-of-three series with the best record having home-field advantage.

Penn opens its Ivy League slate hosting Brown (Mar. 24-25) and Dartmouth (Mar. 31-Apr. 1) in the first two weekends, before road trips to both Harvard (Apr. 7-8) and Princeton (Apr. 14-15). The club concludes its conference schedule against defending Ivy League Champion Yale (May 12-13).

"Opening our season in Louisiana and South Carolina gives our team a great test early in the season," fifth-year head coach John Yurkow said. "Additionally, the new Ivy League format will be a welcomed change and, in turn, will make our conference more competitive. More importantly, this schedule implementation ensures the two best teams will play for the conference title - and the NCAA Tournament bid - at season's end."

The Quakers battled Yale in the Ivy League Championship Series last year after recording 23 wins - the fifth most in school history. The club also won the Gehrig Division title for the first time since 2007.
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Follow Patrick on Twitter: @PGordonPBR

BY PATRICK GORDON
Managing Editor
pgordon@philadelphiabaseballreview.com

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