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The 2018 Minnesota Golden Gophers Baseball season will kick off Friday when Minnesota plays Georgia Tech at 3:00. It’s the first of four games for the Gophers in the Atlanta area this weekend. It will be our first look at a team that returns a ton of a talent from a year ago, and who the Big Ten Coaches predicted will come in third place in the conference earlier this week.
Gopher Nation will have a much better in depth look at the team soon, but Minnesota will be anchored this year by three returnees who were named by the conference coaches to the preseason watch list.
2017 Academic All-Big Ten honorees Micah Coffey, Toby Hanson and Luke Pettersen earn 2018 #B1GBaseball preseason honors. pic.twitter.com/TZLLlIWPLp
— Big Ten Baseball (@B1Gbaseball) February 14, 2018
Senior Micah Coffey played third base a year ago for the Gophers and hit .340 with 35 runs scored a 46 rbi. He will be near the middle of the Gopher lineup along with first basemen Toby Hanson. Hanson hit .319 a season ago with 35 runs scored and 57 rbis to lead Minnesota. Senior second basemen Luke Petterson lead the team with a .354 batting average and averaged over a hit per game. He also stole 30 bases for the Gophers.
The pitching staff will be one spot where Minnesota will look to improve. It will be a very young staff with only redshirt junior Reggie Meyer and sophomore Brett Schulte returning to the rotation from a year ago. Minnesota is hoping a few of there freshman this season can make an impact on a staff that could use a stud or two.
The Gophers will play their first seven games this season on the road, not including an exhibition game against the Minnesota Twins in Fort Myers. Minnesota begins its indoor home portion of the schedule on February 27th when they host North Dakota State at US Bank Stadium.
This weekend Minnesota will play at Georgia Tech at 3:00 PM Friday, a double header at Kennesaw State beginning at Noon on Saturday, and a game at Georgia State at Noon on Sunday.
Friday’s game will be streamed on ACC Network +, and Saturday’s games will be streamed on Facebook Live.
Good luck to the Gophers and coach John Anderson as they try and return to the NCAA Tournament!