Welp, the first day of the division 1 college baseball season is in the book, so it’s time for some overreactions.
LSU may not be as great as some have predicted as they struggled mightily against ULM on Friday night. Some outlets have them as the number one team in the country, but they hardly looked like it in game one. If they don’t find some solid starting pitching they’ll be in trouble.
East Carolina looks like the powerhouse we thought they would be with two wins over Radford on Friday, including a 15-9 rout in the second game of the double-header.
Staying in the AAC, UConn opened the season with a big win over a top five Louisville team.
The ASUN had a couple of big upsets over the SEC with Liberty taking down South Carolina and North Florida beating Missouri. Kennesaw State also had a good win over West Virginia. Meanwhile, the favorites to win that conference (Jacksonville and Stetson) both lost.
The Big 12 did not have a great night with number three Texas Tech losing badly to Oregon, and TCU losing to Cal State Fullerton.
Campbell made a strong case to defend the Big South title with a 10-6 win over Maryland on Friday.
In one of the best finishes in the maybe the best game Friday night Southern Miss enjoyed a walk-off win in extra innings against Purdue.
Dallas Baptist made a statement in the MVC by beating a solid Kent State team 3-0, while preseason favorite Missouri State got thumped by Nevada 16-4.
The defending CWS champs Oregon State had to battle back to beat New Mexico on Friday, but got the win.
Other than those two losses we mentioned earlier, the SEC was its normal self on
As much as I want to see Andrew Vaughn in the postseason, Cal got off to a bad start with a 4-3 loss to CSU Bakersfield. Vaughn was 0-3 with 2 walks in the leadoff spot. He may get walked 100 times this year.
There was an absolutely dreadful loss by Rice who dropped a 2-1 decision to the Rhode Island Rams. It might not be as bad as thought though as Rhode Island has one of the best pitchers in the nation from 2017 season in Tyler Wilson as he struggled in 2018 with an injury. He returned on Friday evening allowing only two hits in five innings of work. The Rams bullpen was outstanding giving up three hits in the final five innings of the game.
