The beginning of the 2016 baseball season has finally arrived and there are more ways than ever for baseball fans to stay connected with the Wildcats throughout the season. Below is a list of some of the platforms which will have up-to-the-minute information on the team.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Fans can follow the baseball team on both Twitter (@VUBaseball) and Instagram (villanovabaseball) during the season. The official hashtag of the 2016 campaign is #vubb150 to commemorate the team's 150th anniversary season. Live updates for all home games and selected road games will be available on Twitter, as well as plenty of additional behind-the-scenes coverage that can't be found anywhere else.

NOVA NATION ALL-ACCESS

The majority of home games at the Villanova Ballpark at Plymouth will be broadcast live by Nova Nation All-Access. Live streaming audio of these games can be heard exclusively online with veteran play-by-play man Nick Mantegna returning for his 13th season calling the action. Following victories by the Wildcats stay tuned to the Nova Nation All-Access postgame show featuring an interview with one of the Villanova student-athletes. Live game audio for the selected home games can also be accessed via smart phones or other mobile devices, including iPhones.

Nova Nation All-Access is a subscription based service and all content is available by purchasing a monthly or yearly subscription to CBS College Sports Live. A subscription gives fans access to content from every school that is part of the CBS Interactive network, including coverage from some road games. For example, fans with an existing subscription will be able to watch all three games of this weekend's series at Houston with no further purchase.

LIVE STATS

For pitch-by-pitch updates of most games pull up live stats via Gametracker from the baseball schedule page on Villanova.com. This state-of-the-art interface updates after each pitch and can now be viewed on smart phones and other mobile devices.

VILLANOVA.COM

Villanova.com is the official website of Nova Nation and it is your source for the most up to date information on Wildcats baseball. Villanova.com features an updates schedule, feature stories, game recaps, live scoreboard, special promotions, live audio and much more.

2016 SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

Villanova opens the 2016 season by traveling to No. 12 Houston for a three-game series. The Cougars won the American Athletic Conference regular season title last year and hosted a regional during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. This weekend's series will be the first-ever meeting on the diamond between the Wildcats and Houston.

Following the season's opening weekend, Villanova will embark on an 11-day, three-city trip to Florida during Spring Break. The trip kicks off with four games in the Snowbird Baseball Classic in Port Charlotte, where the Wildcats will be competing for the fifth straight season. The opponents in that tournament include Chicago State, Dartmouth, Boston College and Indiana State. Villanova will travel from Port Charlotte to Tallahassee to take on Florida State in a single mid-week game on March 2, then from there move on to Deland to compete in the West Lake Mary Stetson Invitational from March 4-6. The tournament at Stetson will see the Wildcats face the host Hatters in addition to Central Michigan and Illinois.

Upon returning north after the Spring Break trip, Villanova will not travel in more than a three-hour radius until the final weekend of the season. The home opener at the Villanova Ballpark at Plymouth is scheduled for March 8 against Delaware State and the Wildcats will also host Lehigh the next day. In all, Villanova will play 28 of the 29 home games on its schedule between March 8 and May 8, with only 10 games on the road during that stretch.

A fan favorite on the schedule is the Liberty Bell Classic, a local tournament which pits area teams against each other leading up to a championship game at Citizens Bank Park in mid-April. Villanova visits Penn on March 29 in a Liberty Bell quarterfinal game, with the winner advancing to the semifinals against either Lafayette or Saint Joseph's on April 5. The potential semifinal game would be a road game for the Wildcats regardless of the opponent.

Villanova has developed into one of the strongest baseball programs in the Mid-Atlantic Region during Joe Godri's tenure as head coach. Over the past 12 seasons (2004-15), the Wildcats have gone 196-137-2 (.588) against non-conference competition while posting a record of 129-82-1 (.611) against all opponents from the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The success against local competition includes at least a share of the Liberty Bell Classic title five times. Villanova last won the tournament in 2011, and reached the championship game in 2013 and 2015.

After hosting their first two conference series in mid-April (Butler, April 8-10; St. John's, April 15-17), the Wildcats will travel to Seton Hall (April 22-24) for their first full road series since Spring Break. Villanova will come off the Seton Hall series for a seven-game home stand, including a conference series versus Creighton (April 29-May 1) and a non-conference series against NYIT (May 6-8) on either end of a midweek home game versus Hofstra (May 3). The final home game of the regular season is against Penn State on May 17.

The final two BIG EAST series of the season are on the road against Georgetown (May 13-15) and Xavier (May 19-21). The top four teams in the BIG EAST standings at the end of the regular season will qualify for the postseason conference tournament, which will be played at Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium in Abderdeen, Md. The BIG EAST Baseball Championship presented by Jeep runs from May 26-29.

Villanova began its baseball program in 1866 and the team has an all-time winning percentage of .569 (1,871-1,412-29).