Sept. 25, 2006

The Notre Dame baseball team will hold its annual Blue-Gold Series – featuring three intrasquad games – on Oct. 5, 7 and 8, with the new twist to feature the series carrying over into a home football weekend. Game-1 will be held on Thursday night, Oct. 5 (5:05 p.m.), followed by Game 2 on Saturday morning (Oct. 7, 9:30 a.m., prior to the ND-Stanford football game) and the decisive third game on Sunday, Oct. 8, at noon. All three games will be seven innings, with members of the assistant coaching staff serving as the respective head coaches for the Blue and Gold teams. Four other scrimmages also are on tap before the Blue-Gold Series (see schedule below).

Additional details about the Blue-Gold Series will be forthcoming on und.com, which again will provide full coverage of the three scrimmages that will mark the end of Notre Dame’s fall practice. All fall workouts and the Blue-Gold Series are open to the public.

Two scrimmages are scheduled for this week, starting with a nine-inning game today (Sept. 25, beginning at 4:10 p.m. and ending at roughly 6:30). Two members of the junior class – former high school teammates Wade Korpi (LHP) and Joey Williamson (RHP) – are slated to throw four innings each as the starters in today’s scrimmage. Freshman RHP Andrew Scheid (3 innings) and walk-on candidate Beck Roan (2) are scheduled to pitch three innings in relief of Korpi while freshmen RHP Eric Maust (currently a backup punter with the football team) will throw four innings in relief of Williamson, followed by an inning from sophomore RHP Jeremy Barnes.

Tuesday’s eight-inning scrimmage (Sept. 26, 4:10) will feature sophomore LHP Sam Elam throwing four innings as one starter, followed by freshman RHP Billy Boockford (2) and walk-on candidate Spencer Howard (2). Senior RHP Dan Kapala will throw one inning as the other starter in that scrimmage, followed by sophomore RHP Brett Graffy (4) and freshman LHP David Mills (3).

The Irish also will play a pair of seven-inning scrimmages on Sunday, Oct. 1 (2:40 p.m.), and Monday, Oct. 2 (4:10). All of Notre Dame’s pitchers are expected to throw at least one inning over the course of these two scrimmages, which will serve as the final tuneup before the Blue-Gold Series. Sophomores RHPs Kyle Weiland and David Phelps are slated to start the Oct. 1 scrimmage while lefthanders Korpi and Elam will start on Oct. 2.

Notre Dame will be practicing every day at Eck Stadium from Sept. 25-Oct. 4 (with the exception of Sept. 30), with most of those practices starting at 3:30 and ending at 6:00 (scrimmage days typically last 30 minutes longer). The only practice slated to start before 3:30 is on Oct. 1 (2:00).