While the weather outside might be on the cool side right now the Lee Flames baseball team is anxiously looking forward to the spring to heat things up on the diamond in 2018.

Under the direction of 12-year veteran head coach Mark Brew the Flames will open up with 15 of their first 20 games at the friendly confines of Olympic Field.

The season officially gets under way with a three-game weekend set against an in-region opponent in Tuskegee University from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. First pitch of the 2018 campaign is set for Saturday, Feb. 3 at 1 p.m.

Never shying away from a challenge the difficult schedule will feature 15 contests against teams that qualified for regionals a season ago with Florida Southern (3), Bellarmine (2), Valdosta St (3), West Alabama (3), Delta State (3), and Lincoln Memorial (1).

In addition to those tough matchups the Brew Crew will travel to Belmont Abbey to face a team that posted 37 wins last season. Lee will also travel to Carson-Newman (29 wins in 2017) and play its traditional home and away series with Tusculum (30 wins in 2017).

The Gulf South Conference has gone to an unbalanced schedule this season so the Flames will host West Alabama, North Alabama, Auburn Montgomery, West Florida and West Georgia while traveling to Mississippi College, Union, Valdosta State, Delta State and Shorter.

Lee will not play Alabama Huntsville, Christian Brothers or Montevallo this year.

Parent's weekend is scheduled for Saturday, March 24 against AUM. The players and their parents will have a special dinner following the doubleheader.

The annual Military Appreciation Day is slated for Saturday, April 21 against West Georgia. Last year the Lee baseball team raised $10,000 for disabled veterans in Bradley County. This year will mark the sixth edition of the benefit game.

After falling just short of the GSC Tournament a season ago the Flames will look to get back into the field this season. The GSC Championship is scheduled for May 5-8 and will be hosted by the league's regular season champion.

"We have assembled a very competitive 2018 schedule with a third of our games coming against 2017 Regional Participants highlighted by an early season trip to always tough Florida Southern," said Brew. "The GSC portion of the schedule will once again be a huge challenge with a 30 game slate including a trip to 2017 GSC Champion and World Series participant Delta State.   We are excited and looking for to the challenge."