LSU Baseball Excited to Take High Powered Offense on the Road

If there's one team in the non-conference portion of the schedule LSU can't take lightly its Louisiana Tech.

Returning many of its players from a team that hosted a regional a season ago, the Tigers will get to experience a true hostile road environment when it takes on the Bulldogs in Ruston on Wednesday evening. Louisiana Tech is off to a 3-0 start to its season, sweeping Wichita State opening weekend after a very successful 2021 run.

"Lot of respect for them, great coaching staff, they'll be prepared, it'll be a great environment and we're really looking forward to it," Johnson said.

Every coach has different philosophies about preparing for road games and Johnson is no different. In past seasons, LSU has traveled for midweek games in state the day of but Johnson wants road games to feel as close to home games as possible.

The Tigers left on Tuesday afternoon, with the opportunity to watch film and get all of the prep work done the night before, just like any other typical home series. The team will wake up well rested and get a morning practice at the Louisiana Tech ball park in the morning before traveling back for the 6 p.m. first pitch later that evening.

"We want to develop a sound routine as far as preparing and try to make it as much like a home game as we possibly can," Johnson said. "I think it'll be good for this team to get together and move out. This is the first time we're playing outside the stadium and I think it'll be a good environment similar to ones we'll play later on."

Johnson wants to treat all midweek games no differently than others but particularly this one in Ruston on Wednesday. This is one of those games in non-conference play that can be very helpful come NCAA tournament time in terms of hosting regionals and potentially super regionals.

This is a Bulldogs team led by Lane Burroughs that has gone 162-90 in five seasons and has gained Johnson's respect going back to Burroughs days as Northwestern State's head coach. Burroughs and Northwestern State traveled out to Arizona to play Johnson and actually beat the Wildcats in one of the two games. That same Arizona team later made a deep NCAA tournament run and became the College World Series runner up.

Johnson and LSU know what they're facing which is why this is such a good opponent to face so early in the season because it's the kind of arms and talent that will be synonymous with SEC play.

"It's the most important game of the season and I don't differentiate between that for a number of reasons," Johnson said. "If you're trying to create self discipline and focus the task at hand is this game. The other part is the RPI doesn't differentiate between conference and non-conference. This is a team that will win 40 plus games and chance to host a regional."

Having this game so early in the schedule will only benefit this group down the road. Johnson declined to name a starter for the game but there will be a number of the "top guys" available so expect many of the high end pitchers to have opportunities.

For Louisiana home grown players like infielder Cade Doughty, playing other in state schools is a tremendous opportunity and something they take great pride in.

"It fires us up. We like to play teams like that so it's going to be a real challenge and we're gonna be ready," Doughty said.

"On so many levels this game is so good for us," Johnson said. "It's a good opportunity for us to play a good team in a very good environment and they're one of the best teams on our schedule so I'm really looking forward to it."