Auburn announces baseball schedule

Courtesy of Auburn sports information

AUBURN – Auburn announced its baseball schedule on Monday, and the Tigers will play a total of 32 games against teams that advanced to the 2011 NCAA Tournament during the upcoming season.

Of the 32 games against NCAA Tournament participants, 16 will come at Plainsman Park while 21 of them will be played from April 1 through May 19.

“We are anxious to get started and meet the challenge that our 2012 schedule presents,” said Auburn coach John Pawlowski. “We play 34 home games and we face schools from 10 different conferences. This will test our club and the 17 new faces that will be in an Auburn Tiger uniform this year.”

Auburn kicks off the 2012 season on Friday, Feb. 17, when it plays host to Missouri of the Big XII in a three-game series. That is the first of eight home weekend series for Auburn, which includes its tournament from March 2-4 which brings Purdue, Charleston Southern and Southern Miss to Plainsman Park.

Auburn’s other non-conference home weekend brings Belmont, the 2011 A-Sun Tournament champion, in for three games from March 9-11.

The Tigers will travel to Arizona of the Pac-12 for three games in February, playing a single game on Friday, Feb. 24 and a doubleheader on Saturday, Feb. 25, with all three games being played at Hi Corbett Field, the former spring training facility of the Colorado Rockies.

The fourth annual Capital City Classic takes place on Tuesday, March 6 at 7 p.m. at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery. Auburn has won the three previous meetings with in-state rival Alabama in the non-conference matchup.

Auburn’s home SEC slate will bring LSU (March 23-25), Mississippi State (March 30-Apr. 1), two-time defending National Champion South Carolina (Apr. 20-22), Tennessee (Apr. 27-29) and 2011 national runner-up Florida (May 17-19) to Plainsman Park.

Auburn will travel to Ole Miss (March 16-18), Alabama (Apr. 6-8), Vanderbilt (Apr. 13-15), Georgia (May 4-6) and Arkansas (May 11-13) in the SEC.

Pawlowski is going into his fourth season at Auburn and has guided the program to a SEC Western Division Championship, back-to-back appearances in the SEC Tournament and a 103-75 (.579) overall record. The program’s 34 SEC wins over the last two seasons are the most over a two-year period for the program since it won 35 in 1999 and 2000, coach Hal Baird’s final two seasons at Auburn.