College Baseball

5 Things We Learned from Week 1 At The Shriners Children’s College Showdown

If the first weekend of the 2025 Shriners Children’s College Showdown is a microcosm of what’s to come along the road to Omaha, buckle up for a wild, unpredictable baseball season. 

The loaded field at the Shriners Children’s College Showdown brought an Omaha feel to Globe Life Field, with preseason favorites and hungry up-and-comers alike making statements. 

Louisville Is A Team To Watch In The ACC 

Although unranked in preseason polls, Louisville came into 2025 with the right combination of veteran talent and high-potential transfers to be a factor in the Atlantic Coast Conference race. And, with a 4-3 walk-off win over Texas in the College Baseball Showdown’s opening night, the Cardinals set the tone for a breakthrough 2025. 

Lucas Moore, who delivered the game-winning hit vs. the Longhorns, went 4-for-10 for the weekend and stole a base. Zion Rose, the preseason All-ACC honoree, went 6-of-13 and drove in a pair of runs, and Louisville’s starting pitching staff got outstanding performances from Peter Michael and Patrick Forbes. 

Neither earned a decision, but they put up ERAs of 1.93 and 3.60 in their starts. Michael, a Northwestern transfer, held Arizona batters to a scant .071 batting average in Sunday’s finale. Forbes was dominant against Texas with 11 strikeouts in five innings. 

Ole Miss Is A Team To Watch In The SEC 

Like Louisville, Ole Miss was a team with perhaps the most to gain from its performance in Arlington. The Rebels capitalized with a 2-1 showing, bookended by Top 25 wins over Arizona and a run-rule rout of Clemson. 

Luke Hill was one of the stars of the College Baseball Showdown, going 5-for-9 for the weekend. He drove in a run in the Friday opener against Arizona — which proved critical in a 2-1 win — and poured it on vs. Clemson with a pair of home runs and five driven in. 

Hill leaves Texas with a staggering 2.027 OPS and 1.444 slugging percentage. Meanwhile, on the mound, Hunter Elliott’s shutout five innings and an impressive 3 2/3 innings of relief from Will McCausland with eight strikeouts showed the potential of the Rebels pitching staff. 

Former D-III Standout Dom Listi Is A Revelation For Clemson 

Outfielder Dominic Listi raked in his three full seasons at Div. III program North Central, batting at least .324 every year from 2021 through 2023. He proved his bat translates to Div. I baseball last season with a strong Indiana State program, hitting .324 with 31 RBI and three home runs for Sycamores. 

Listi’s transfer to Clemson bolsters the Tigers’ College World Series aspirations, as the consistent bat he showed in Div. III and the Missouri Valley Conference again came through at the College Baseball Showdown. 

Listi went 5-for-9 and drove in seven runs over the course of the Tigers’ 2-1 weekend. When he wasn’t getting on base with hits, he was drawing walks or getting hit by pitches, both of which happened twice. With that kind of on-base presence, Listi can be a critical offensive weapon for Clemson all season. 

Arizona Needs Its Bats To Come Alive 

Coming into the 2025 season, the question for preseason Top 25 team Arizona was how its pitching staff would handle some key departures from the Pac-12-winning 2024 lineup. However, it was the Wildcats bats going cold that plagued UA in an 0-3 weekend at Globe Life Field. 

Arizona plated just one run in the opener against Ole Miss, squandering a strong start from Collin McKinney. Freshman Smith Bailey also had an impressive first start, striking out five and not giving up a run in his four innings against Louisville, but the Wildcats’ going cold after Mason White’s first-inning home run doomed UA to the floodgates opening for the Cardinals in the eighth inning. 

If there’s any silver inning for the Arizona offense coming out of Arlington, it’s that the team’s top two prospects coming into the season — White and Brendan Summerhill — combined for three home runs in an otherwise offensively lackluster weekend. 

Texas Is As-Advertised In Jim Schlossnagle’s First Season

Perhaps the biggest move of the college baseball offseason was Jim Schlossnagle leaving Texas A&M for rival Texas. The multiple-time College World Series-qualifying coach stepped into one of the sport’s premier programs with a roster built for a national championship run, and the Longhorns did not disappoint in their first weekend under the new leadership. 

Texas rebounded from its 10-inning, 4-3 loss in Louisville in the Showdown’s opener to blast Ole Miss with a run-ruling shutout. Max Belyeu’s home run highlighted a 2-for-4, three-RBI game, but the performance of starting pitcher Luke Harrison stole the show. 

Harrison’s two-hit, six-strikeout effort in 6 1/3 innings kept Ole Miss at bay until the Horns bats exploded in a pivotal fourth inning. With Indiana State transfer Jared Spencer also spinning a scoreless 5 2/3 innings with six strikeouts in his start, Texas could have a dangerous one-two punch leading the starting pitching rotation. 

As for the preseason All-American Belyeu, he lived up to the hype and then some with two home runs on an 8-for-14 weekend. 

Amegy Bank College Baseball Series Presented by Kubota Weekend 1

Friday, Feb. 21

Saturday, Feb. 22

Sunday, Feb. 23

Wednesday, Feb. 26

Amegy Bank College Baseball Series Presented by Kubota Weekend 2

Friday, Feb. 28

Saturday, Mar. 1

Sunday, Mar. 2

College Baseball Rankings 2025 – D1Baseball Top 25

  1. Texas A&M – 53-15 – Previous: 2
  2. Virginia – 46-17 – Previous: 7
  3. LSU – 43-23 – Previous: NR
  4. Tennessee – 60-13 – Previous: 1
  5. Arkansas – 44-16 – Previous: 17
  6. North Carolina – 48-16 – Previous: 5
  7. Oregon State – 45-16 – Previous: 10
  8. Georgia – 43-17 – Previous: 11
  9. Florida State – 49-17 – Previous: 4
  10. Florida – 36-30 – Previous: 8
  11. Duke – 40-20 – Previous: 24
  12. Oregon – 40-20 – Previous: 12
  13. NC State – 38-23 – Previous: 6
  14. Wake Forest – 38-22 – Previous: NR
  15. Clemson – 44-16 – Previous: 9
  16. Vanderbilt – 38-23 – Previous: NR
  17. Oklahoma State – 42-19 – Previous: 21
  18. Mississippi State – 40-23 – Previous: 22
  19. Texas – 36-24 – Previous: NR
  20. Dallas Baptist – 45-15 – Previous: NR
  21. Arizona – 36-23 – Previous: 25
  22. UC Santa Barbara – 44-14 – Previous: 19
  23. TCU – 33-21 – Previous: NR
  24. Nebraska – 40-22 – Previous: NR
  25. Troy – 37-22 – Previous: NR

FloBaseball Archived Footage

Video footage from the event will be archived and stored in a video library for FloBaseball subscribers to watch for the duration of their subscription.

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