The Owensboro Thoroughbreds are gearing up for the 2023 campaign, announcing their upcoming schedule with plenty of new opponents on Tuesday.
The Thoroughbreds will play a regular season consisting of 24 games, split with 12 each on the road and at home. They’ll open the season with a two-game road stand against the Griffins on March 3 and the Hurricanes on March 10, before coming back for their home opener against the Distillers on March 16.
Joining a new conference to alleviate some traveling issues, Head Coach Mark Anderson and company are looking forward to facing some new challenges in 2023.
“I like the fact we are playing different teams now and really our travel outside of going to Huntsville won’t be much different then the last two seasons being in the Midwest Conference,” Anderson said. “But it doesn’t appear that we will be traveling 7-8 hours one way (Flint or Detroit) so that’ll be nice. Cincinnati, Kentucky, Medora, and Huntsville will be seasoned teams so like before we will need to play our best each game. The new teams, St. Louis and Derby City, should be competitive also.”
The schedule is also chock full of special events, as every single Thoroughbreds home game will have a theme—starting with First Responders Night during the season opener. But first Anderson has to fill out a roster for the second straight season, with limited players returning after many went on to play professionally elsewhere.
“[We expect] anywhere from 2-4 players [to come back],” Anderson said. “It’s interesting that each season most teams have big turnover whether it’s due to players going international, to another TBL team, or team’s going in a different direction. We will have our second tryout here in Owensboro on Jan. 14 at the Sportscenter. We are looking to have a good turnout. February 3-5 will be TBL combine/draft weekend in Indianapolis and then [we’ll] possibly [have] one more tryout in Owensboro the following weekend. Training camp will be mid-February.”
Anderson is really looking forward to getting ready for the upcoming season, as he’s excited to travel and compete at different locations while still battling for wins against tough competition night in and night out.
“I think seeing the new teams and venues are always interesting, but Kentucky and Medora were games that went down to the last couple of minutes and were very competitive,” Anderson said. “So for me it would be those games and Cincinnati just because we know a lot of the players that are on those teams.”
