March 8, 2007

The Notre Dame baseball team officially has added a game for Monday morning, March 12, versus Harvard. The game will be played in Clearwater, Fla., and will start at 10:00 a.m. – adding another level of challenge to the first month of the season as that will be the third straight day in which the Irish will play at 10:00 a.m. during the upcoming Spring Break trip. Saturday’s 10:00 a.m. game versus Sacred Heart will mark the second time this season that Notre Dame has flown into town late on a Friday night and then had to turn around and play early the next day (ND played Prairie View A&M at noon on opening day in San Antonio and then turned around to face Texas State in that day-1 doubleheader).

The March 12 game with Harvard – which had been a provisional game on the 2007 schedule – was added to the official schedule due to the possibility that the home opener versus Cleveland State on March 20 will not be played, pending the weather developments over the next two weeks. The Irish also have a provisional plan to shift the single game versus Oakland on April 3 to a doubleheader, if needed.

Any additional adjustments to the Notre Dame schedule – due to the addition of the March 12th Harvard game – will be announced at a later date. The March 12 game essentially would serve as the makeup game (already played) for any ensuing rainouts involving Notre Dame.

Notre Dame’s planned rotation for the first five games of the Spring Break trip is as follows:

Sat., March 10 (vs. Sacred Heart) – David Phelps (RHP, So.)

Sun., March 11 (vs. Duquesne) – Wade Korpi (LHP, Jr.)

Sat., March 11 (vs. Harvard) – Dan Kapala (RHP, Sr.)

Mon., March 12 (vs. Harvard) – Brett Graffy (RHP, So.)

Wed., March 14 (vs. Dayton) – Sam Elam (LHP, So.)

Note: the March 10-12 games will be played at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater while the ND-Dayton game will be played in Ft. Myers at Florida Gulf Coast Univesity (ND plays three other games at FGCU, with the probable rotation for those games TBA).