by Malcolm Butler
At one time in his coaching career, Lane Burroughs wore the purple uniform of the Kansas State Wildcats.
Now the Louisiana Tech skipper will be facing the same Big 12 foe when the Bulldogs open the Fayetteville Regional tonight at 7 p.m. at Walker Baum Stadium.
Tech (45-17) enters the regional as the No. 2 seed and will face the No. 3 seed Kansas State (32-24) in the second game of the day. No. 1 seed and host Arkansas (43-14) will face No. 4 seed Southeast Missouri State (34-25) at 2 p.m.
Burroughs, who spent the 2008 season in Manhattan as an assistant coach for the Wildcats, will lead Tech into its third regional in four years (Ruston 2021, Austin 2022).
He said the Wildcats will present plenty of challenges despite the fact it’s K-State’s first NCAA Regional in 11 years. He specifically talked about the arm Tech will face tonight in Owen Boerema (6-3, 4.91).
“I watched video (of him the past few days),” said Burroughs. “He is good. He has good stuff. Three pitches for strikes. He competes, and he pitches deep into ball games. He threw 132 pitches last week in the Big 12 Tournament.”
Offensively, the Wildcats are hitting .271 with just 59 home runs, but they have stolen 127 bases on the year. K-State is just 12-17 away from their home stadium this season, including a 3-3 mark in neutral site games.
“They are just a really good team,” said Burroughs. “Having lived up there and coached up there I know what that program means to those people. I’m sure they are going to show up too. It’s a really, really good ball club and we have to be ready to go.
“I think all four of the teams are good. It will be fun to get up there, reconnect with some old friends, and play some ball.”
Burroughs confirmed that Luke Nichols will get the nod on the mound in Friday night’s opener for Tech. Nichols (4-3, 3.75) will make his 16th start of the season, logging a team-high 77.0 innings this year.
“We’ll see their top starting pitcher Luke Nichols, no one ever said it was going to be easy, but it’s that time of year when you’re going to have to run through some arms to go where we want to go,” said K-State head coach Pete Hughes. “They’ve got a really good coach, Lane Burroughs is one of the most respected coaches in the country, so I look forward to playing against his team – I’ve always admired his team from afar.”
Hughes had plenty of praise for the Bulldogs.
“Their top four guys each had over fifteen home runs, that’ll make you pause and think a little bit,” said Hughes. “It’s a really good program for those guys. No one-hit wonders. They have won a lot of games for some time now. They’re playing good baseball, they’re hot and they’re well coached. They are pretty physical, and they pitch it well too, the back end of their game is as good as it gets in the country.”
Every game this weekend will be on 97.7 FM with Dave Nitz providing a call of the game. They will also be streamed on ESPN+.
