SPORTS BRIEF: Baseball opens season with Florida trip, takes on non-conferences foes

The Harvard baseball team opens its 2007 campaign this weekend with the first of its three spring trips to sunny Florida.

The Crimson is slated to play a day-night doubleheader tomorrow in Clearwater, Fla., opening against Quinnipiac and then taking on Duquesne under the lights of Jack Russell Stadium.

The Bobcats, picked second in the preseason Northeast Conference poll, are led by senior outfielder and .400 hitter Ryan Rizzo.

The Dukes (2-5) were swept in a season-opening three-game series by then-No. 15 Georgia Tech, and tuned up against the local big league squad, the Pittsburgh Pirates, yesterday.

Sunday holds in store a meeting with Big East foe Notre Dame (3-6). The Fighting Irish knocked off then-seventh-ranked Nebraska in its last outing.

Harvard squares off with Tampa on Monday at noon before briefly returning north. This weekend’s road swing is part of a stretch of 16 Florida games in 20 days, including another trip next weekend and a spring break sojourn.

The Crimson, picked to finish first in the Ivy League in Baseball America’s preseason prognostication, will use the non-conference schedule to fine-tune its lineup and rotation, down four starting position players and two weekend hurlers from last year.

—JONATHAN LEHMAN