Spring break means spring sports – Archive
Written by Crow's Nest Staff, Mar 7, 2011, 0 Comments
Greg Lindberg
Sports Editor
As the old cliché goes, spring is in the air. That must mean spring break is right around the corner. USF St. Petersburg students will be off the week of March 14 to enjoy some much-needed time away from their textbooks and professors.
If you aren’t hitting the beach or taking a Caribbean cruise, pass the time with a dose of sports. A ton of baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, soccer and action is on the slate during the week off:
Spring Training Baseball
Spring training is now underway in the Sunshine State with the Grapefruit League. Major League Baseball players are back at the office—or field—in preparation for the upcoming 2011 regular season. Seven major league clubs train in and around the area, and every team will be in action during spring break. These teams include: the Toronto Blue Jays (Dunedin), the Philadelphia Phillies (Clearwater), the New York Yankees (Tampa), the Detroit Tigers (Lakeland), the Baltimore Orioles (Sarasota), the Pittsburgh Pirates (Bradenton) and the Tampa Bay Rays (Port Charlotte). The tail end of the St. Petersburg International Baseball Series also wraps up at Al Lang Field with a game Friday, March 11 (Netherlands vs. SPC) and Sunday, March 13 (Phillies vs. Netherlands). Tickets for the major league spring training games start at $13 and are available through each team’s website.
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament
The much-anticipated NCAA men’s basketball tournament will hold several of its games in Tampa this year. And conveniently for USF students, all the games will take place during spring break. Six second- and third-round games will be held on Thursday, March 17 and Saturday, March 19 at the St. Pete Times Forum. Tickets for “March Madness” will be tough to get at this point, but several ticket websites will likely have them for sale if you weren’t lucky enough to score some sooner.
FC Tampa Bay Preseason Soccer
If you haven’t heard the great news yet, the FC Tampa Bay soccer team will be playing its home games at Al Lang Field in downtown St. Petersburg at least through the 2012 season. So to wet your appetite for the regular season, you can catch a few preseason games played at venues around the state. Locally, the team will face BK Hacken (Swedish team) at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, March 12 (time TBA). Then on Saturday, March 19, they will play Florida Gulf Coast at the Brandon Area Youth Soccer League complex in Brandon at 4 p.m. FC Tampa Bay will also take on USF on April 3 at 7 p.m. at the USF soccer field in Tampa. The home opener to the regular season is Saturday, April 9 vs. Montreal.
PGA Transitions Championship
Fans of birdies and eagles—no, not the winged aviary creatures—can watch some of the world’s top golfers compete at the 2011 Transitions Championship from March 14 to 20. The annual PGA tournament will be held at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club in Palm Harbor. Past winners of the tournament include Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk and Retief Goosen. Tickets are available through the tournament website at www.transitionschampionship.com.
Tampa Bay Lightning Hockey
Although the high-flying Bolts are on the road most of spring break, they will host the Ottawa Senators on Friday, March 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the St. Pete Times Forum. If you’re going home for the week to South Florida, you could hit up a game on Saturday, March 12 at 7 p.m. when the Lightning travel to Sunrise to face the Florida Panthers. In addition, all students who show their USF ID can purchase lower-level tickets to Lightning home games for $25—a rare student discount in professional sports.
