Loaded with talented freshmen and five seniors, Washington State baseball Head Coach Donnie Marbut and the Cougars are ready to face the unknown this weekend, taking part in the SFA Tipton Ford Classic in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Those unknowns count for both opponents – Stephen F. Austin, Missouri State and Texas-Arlington – as well as the Cougars themselves.

WSU is looking to improve on their 24-30 record from 2014, with 18 of those losses coming from on the road. Being that it’s the first weekend of the 2015 season Marbut and the rest of the team are planning on keeping things simple.

“The first weekend you’re trying to figure out which guys can do what in which situations,” Marbut said. “You just want to see how your team’s going to react against a different opponent. The game experience is really, really important. At the end of this first weekend we’ll have four games and kids will have experience and there will be a lot of kids who have experience that never played before so that’s probably what we’re most excited about seeing.”

Two freshmen will start on the infield to begin the season with Jack Strunc at shortstop and Shane Matheny as the third baseman. But Marbut has a plan to keep the freshmen loose without burning them out early.

Enter senior infielder Ian Sagdal, who was one of the Coug’s best hitters last season with a .269 batting average and .346 on-base percentage, and junior infielder Patrick McGrath, who hit just .229 last season. The combination of the two will allow for a fair amount of interplay, giving the infield a balance of youth and experience.

“We’re pretty set on some guys, but we have some versatility and some flexibility with some players that can play multiple spots,” Marbut said. “So I don’t see us being a team that we’re going to play one through nine all the time. Are there some guys that will probably play a significant amount of time, absolutely, but we’ll be pretty flexible.”

WSU’s pitching staff will have the same balance as the rest of the team, with two seniors at the top of the starting rotation. Lefty Joe Pistorese will command the No.1 spot with right-hander Sean Hartnett No.2. The final three are all newcomers, including one junior college transfer Jesse Houser.

“We got a whole bunch of young pitchers that have shown a lot of promise over the fall and spring,” Hartnett said. “We’ve got a couple relief pitchers – Scotty Sunitsch and Ryan Walker, a righty and a lefty. They got some nasty stuff.”

However, with all the uncertainty and questions surrounding the freshmen who have yet to play in a game that counts, it comes down to taking one game at a time and getting off to a strong start this weekend.

“Well, definitely you’ve got 56 games, so you should make them all count and getting off to a fast start would help tremendously before going into Pac-12 play,” Jones said on this weekend’s tournament. “It’s good, all the guys are excited and antsy to get on the field, so hopefully we show that energy and get some W’s right from the beginning.”

None of the three opponents this weekend are ranked in any major polls, but still provide a good test early on this season.

Stephen F. Austin:

Washington State and Stephen F. Austin start and end the tournament against each other. The Lumberjacks will start senior right-handed pitcher Cameron Gann Friday and freshman left-handed pitcher Pat Day Monday. Gann is coming off an up and down 2014 season where he finished 5-1 with a 5.14 ERA in 11 starts.

SFA finished the 2014 season 20-35 and based off the Southland Conference preseason coaches’ poll, where they came in ninth, they aren’t expected to fare much better this season. Much like WSU, Stephen F. Austin only has five seniors on their roster but have more juniors and sophomores (18) than the Cougs do freshmen.

WSU will face SFA Friday at 4 p.m. and Monday at 4:30 p.m.

Texas-Arlington:

UT-Arlington poses one of the biggest threats in the tournament this weekend, coming off a 33-26 record last season and returning four seniors to their infield. Junior infielder Darien McLemore is one of the best on the team, coming off his sophomore season in which he hit .301 and 31 runs batted in. He was also named to the preseason All-Sun Belt team.

“We have a lot more guys that can do some damage as opposed to one or two, so I think that will really help us this year, if one guy’s struggling then we have three or four who can really pick them up,” McLemore said in a press release.

Washington State and UT-Arlington have played each other before in 2000, a two-game series that was split with each team winning one game. The Cougars will face UT-Arlington at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Missouri State:

Sunday will mark the first time that Washington State and Missouri State have faced off against each other. The Bears were picked to finish second this season in the Missouri Valley Conference coaches poll in January, and return several high profile prospects including junior outfielder Tate Matheny, selected as a consensus All-American.

Matheny is without question the star of the Bears lineup, having hit .330 last season with 10 home runs. He enters this season on the Golden Spikes Award Watch List, given to the nation’s best amateur player.

WSU will face Missouri State at 10 a.m. Sunday.