The Beavers, which look to improve on a 14-19 campaign a year ago, open the season at home on March 3rd against St. Louis Christian College, an opponent Blackburn has not played since 1999. After a road contest at Millikin University the next day, the Beavers will embark on the annual spring trip. The trip begins in Memphis, Tennessee, where Blackburn will play Rhodes College on Sunday, March 7. “Rhodes has a first class program with top-notch facilities and will be a strong test and a tough beginning to our trip,” said Neal. The next day the Beavers will take on Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi, where the Choctaws have defeated the Beavers the last two seasons. After that, it is on to New Orleans, Louisiana where Blackburn will take on Loyola University of New Orleans in back to back night games on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Our players get the opportunity to experience the great city of New Orleans while competing in a beautiful stadium against an always tough wolfpack team,” said Neal. Blackburn and Loyola split the two-game series a year ago. The trip then wraps up with a three-game series at Huntingdon College on the weekend in Montgomery, Alabama, before returning home.
After getting back from spring break, the Beavers have one final non-conference matchup against Lincoln Christian University at home on March 16 in a 12:30 p.m. doubleheader, before beginning the 24-game St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference portion of the schedule. Blackburn will open conference play at home on March 20, taking on MacMurray College for a doubleheader before traveling to Jacksonville the next day to finish the series. After an odd nine-day break in the schedule, the Beavers travel to Greenville College to open that series on March 30 with a doubleheader. The next weekend series is against Principia College with a home single game on April 2 before the doubleheader on the 3rd in Elsah. Blackburn and Greenville finish their series on April 7 with a 3 p.m. single game, which is the beginning of an eight-game home-stand with Westminster (3), Webster (2), and Fontbonne (2) rounding out the opponents for those games. After finishing series’ with Fontbonne and Webster on the road, Blackburn travels to Louisville, Kentucky to take on Spalding University in the first ever SLIAC contests between the two programs. Blackburn ends the season taking on Eureka College with the series beginning before final exams and ending after final exams on May 5.
“Once again our early spring break is very challenging as we generally play better competition than what we find in our conference, with the goal of raising our level of play to ready ourselves to compete in the SLIAC,” said Neal.
Blackburn College is located in Carlinville, Illinois.
