Baseball is officially back in the ‘Boro. After a nice finish to last season that saw the Eagles make it to the Sun Belt championship game, there is much optimism going around Eagle Nation.

The Eagles return many key pieces from last year’s team, including power hitting Ryan Cleveland, Evan McDonald, Cal Baker, Logan Baldwin, and Evan Challenger to lead the pitching rotation, as just a few guys ready to lead this team.

The Sun Belt is sure to be a tough test this with defending national champions Coastal Carolina, UL Lafayette, and South Alabama poised for another strong season.

This Eagles team has plenty of fire power to compete in the conference, which was ranked fifth in the nation by d1baseball.com, and it all starts this weekend against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.

The Blue Raiders come into this season looking to right the ship after seeing them go 20-35 with a 5-24 conference record last season.

The Eagles will have a couple of players to watch out for with Riley Delgado and Blake Benefield, who are the leading returners in batting average and home runs respectively for the Blue Raiders. The Eagles should be able to hit well though as the Middle Tennessee pitching staff returns with a combined 5.68 ERA.

The weather should hold up pretty nice this weekend with temperatures being in the low 70s all weekend and with a slight chance of rain on Saturday. This couldn’t be a more perfect time to get baseball season started, so make sure to come out and pack Clements Stadium Friday-Sunday.