Texas baseball hosts Lamar University in first midweek game of the season

The lights are on, the weather is cool, and Texas Longhorns fans gather at the Disch to watch the ‘Horns take on either a satellite school or college from a town you think you’ve been through, but aren’t really sure.

That’s right — midweek baseball is finally here.

Tonight’s opponent are the Lamar University Cardinals of Beaumont, TX. No strangers to Austin, this will be the 36th meeting between the two. UT currently holds the series lead at 31-5. However, Lamar defeated Texas as recently as 2016, and shouldn’t be taken too lightly.

Lamar hosted a competitive Missouri State team that came in to the weekend ranked No. 22 in the nation and was able to split the series 1-1. After dropping the final game of the weekend against Texas Southern, Lamar comes into Austin with a 1-2 record. The Cardinals got an absurd amount of production from freshman outfielder Cole Secrest, who hit two home runs and drove in eight runs with a .636 average.

Meanwhile, Texas was able to snag two of three games from Louisiana-Lafayette over the weekend. Despite getting stellar performances on the mound and a good series from the bats of Kody Clemens and Mason Hibbeler, the rest of the ‘Horns were silenced at the plate, with the team scoring just nine runs all weekend.

Texas will continue to look towards developing its young hitters early in the season, but last weekend wasn’t exactly the start the team wanted from the plate, even if it did include an awesome walk-off homer.

Both teams will be calling on pitchers making their team debuts tonight. For Lamar, JUCO transfer LHP Taylor Rich gets the mound, while the highly-touted freshman Nico O’Donnell will get his first start in burnt orange.

Tonight’s game should be competitive as both teams look to settle in to the rigors of a young season. With O’Donnell making his first start, in what should be weather you’d expect only at a Big 10 school this time of year, it’ll be important that he can get some support from the Texas bats tonight to let him settle in to the game and get a feel for his stuff. I expect Lamar to bring a good fight, but history should repeat itself as Texas finds a way to win in an important tune-up game before heading down to Baton Rogue.

If you’re in Austin, put on a jacket and come out to the Disch. Hook ‘Em.