Texas baseball begins quest for trip No. 39 to College World Series

Baseball excellence resumes in Austin on Friday night. The Texas Longhorns will open their final Big 12 baseball season with a nonconference battle with San Diego Toreros, the university that produced MLB star Kris Bryant, at Disch-Falk Field.

The Longhorns are widely viewed as a contender to make the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. The program is head and shoulders above the rest of college baseball in World Series appearances with 38. They will look to make it 39 in 2024.

The upcoming season marks the end of Big 12 baseball for Texas after playing in the league since 1997. It sets up big matchups with recent baseball rivals TCU and Texas Tech among others.

Starting pitcher Labarron Johnson Jr. leads the Longhorns into what projects to be a memorable season. Fellow pitcher Tanner Witt, outfielder Porter Brown, third baseman Peyton Powell, outfielder Jared Thomas and second baseball Jack O’Dowd return as key players for the team.

Freshman Will Gasparino was at one point given a Top-100 draft rating, but instead chose to play outfield for Texas. The top prospect could play a big role in improving the Texas lineup in 2024.

The schedule features plenty of teams that should fire up Texas faithful. The Astros Foundation College Classic at Minute Maid park gives the Longhorns matchups with the LSU Tigers, Texas State Bobcats and Vanderbilt Commodores. That slate begins with the Tigers on Mar. 1.

LSU, of course, comes off a national title victory in 2023. Vanderbilt has made two of the last four World Series finals and won it all in 2019 while Texas State has been a program on the rise in recent seasons. The trio of games won’t determine the success of the season, but will provide NCAA tournament-quality opponents early in the year.

Texas follows the classic invitational with Texas A&M at home on March 5. Next, the team faces a three-game road battle over that weekend with Texas Tech March 8-10.

In other notable games for the year, the Longhorns will play host to the Washington Huskies (Mar. 15-17), TCU Horned Frogs (April 19-21) and Oklahoma State Cowboys (May 3-5). The team will face Oklahoma in Norman, April 26-28.

Texas has the pieces to contend for Omaha again in 2024. They begin that championship push on Friday against San Diego at 7 p.m. CT on the Longhorn Network.

Story originally appeared on Longhorns Wire