It's more fun to watch LSU play 3 different good teams in one weekend than 1 overmatched team for 3 games. It makes it a little harder to figure out who we're going to face and to find 3x as many interesting things about the teams. This post isn't finished and as always I encourage you to contribute as well:

All games will be played at Dell Diamond, home of the Round Rock Express. The field is most widely known as the place at which Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie faked working during filming of their "hit" "reality" show The Simple Life. The dimensions are Left field: 335 feet (102 m), Center field: 400 feet (120 m), Right field: 325 feet (99 m). I copied those dimensions from Wikipedia and left the meters in there as a reminder that there are two types of countries: Those that use the metric system and those that landed on the moon.

Game 1 – 2pm central - D1Baseball.com stream

LSU - Paul Skenes
KSU - Owen Boerma

Pete Hughes (Hal’s dad) leads his undefeated Kansas State into Round Rock off a 4-game sweep of Stephen F Austin. Owen Boerma, a D3 transfer from Minnesota, started opening day for the Wildcats but only went 3 innings. He gave up 5 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4 in the process. He was a big strikeout guy in D3 but it remains to be seen how that will translate to D1. Reliever Ty Ruhl followed him up in game 1 going 5 innings of 1-run relief, I don’t know if they plan to swap them or move someone else to the Friday role. They spread their innings out over the course of the 4-game series with Ruhl throwing more than any other pitcher on the roster. RHP German Fajardo pitched for Jay at Arizona before transferring to Kansas State when Jay came to LSU.

K State’s roster has a couple former SEC players: Roberto Pena (Florida, College of Central Florida, and South Florida) and Trae Robertson (Missouri). Though I haven’t yet found any evidence that they played against LSU. Hal’s brother Dom Hughes is an outfielder on the team and currently has the second highest average. Rightfielder Cash Rugely was twice drafted out of JUCO by the Cardinals but has underwhelmed in Manhattan.

K-State will play Will Davis’ Lamar Cardinals on Wednesday before heading to Austin.

Game 2 – 12pm central - D1Baseball.com stream

LSU - Riley Cooper
Iowa - Brody Brecht

Iowa comes in undefeated after sweeping 3 games in the Snowbird Classic in Port Charlotte, Florida. They took game 1 from MVC power Indiana State and then a pair of games from Quinnipiac, which is a team that exists. Iowa series preview

Presumed starter Brody Brecht has the highest ceiling of any pitcher we will face before SEC play. Inasmuch as anyone plays WR on the Iowa football team, he plays WR on the Iowa football team. He came into Iowa as a highly touted draft prospect throwing in the upper 90s out of high school. He had trouble harnessing it last season and walked over 20% of batters faced. He struck out nearly 40% though, so the stuff was apparent last year as well. He then went to summer ball (Prospect League) and struck out 19 guys in 6.2 innings. If you’re counting, 6.2 innings is only 20 outs. He cut his walk rate slightly over the summer but got batted around a bit. Last week he went 5 no-hit innings and struck out 10 and suddenly popped up on the radar of a bunch of people who didn’t know Iowa had a baseball team until they saw them on our schedule.

Another interesting player for the Hawkeyes is redshirt Sophomore Keaton Anthony. The talented two-way player is the leading returning hitter from last season and has already exceeded his innings total from 2022.

Game 3 - 4pm central - D1Baseball.com stream

LSU - TBD
SHSU - TBD

Sam Houston State makes the long trek from what used to not be the Houston metro area but is now kind of the Houston metro area. The former Southland Conference power now plays in the WAC, at least for now. They took 2 of 3 from Rhode Island, including a 25-2 Sunday win. They will swing the bats. They will also play McNeese and Rice before making the trip to Round Rock.

Their roster seems to be completely made up of former Texas JUCO players. Texas JUCO competition is very good, but it also means they’re going to be scrappy and play with an edge. Sam Houston is a good program overall going back to the days of David Pierce and Mett Deggs (and probably farther back than them). Logan Hewitt got the start for them on Sunday and went 6 innings. I don’t see them changing that up, but who knows.

In deference to the official sponsor of the Round Rock Classic, this weekend's beer is the Karbach Crawford Bock. As evidenced by the unhealthy amount I drank at the Minute Made Classic last year, it's a great baseball beer. I can't get any where I live, and I don't like the Astros, but I really enjoyed this beer. It's only 4.5%, so it's sessionable, especially on draft and even at ballpark prices.

As more info becomes available, I will add it to this post. I will add more interesting players and stats as I find them as well.

This post was edited on 2/23/23 at 2:36 pm