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PINEVILLE, La. – There exist few differences between the Louisiana College baseball team and its first-round opponent in the American Southwest Conference Tournament, Concordia.

The teams – which begin a three-game series Friday at 6 p.m. in Austin, Texas – have nearly identical records, 25-15 for LC and 25-14 for the Tornadoes, are both senior laden and technically the second-place team in their respective divisions.

Concordia finished alone in second in the ASC West with a 15-6 mark while the Wildcats finished in a three-way tie for second along with Texas Dallas and Mississippi College with an 11-7 mark in division play and is the third seed in the East due to UTD holding all tiebreakers.

But the similarities don't stop there.

In overall approach to the game and on-field production, the Tornadoes and Wildcats are more alike than different.

“On paper, Concordia is a team that looks a lot like us,” Louisiana College coach Mike Byrnes said. “They're batting about .300 for the year, they run a lot, the play a lot of 90-foot baseball. They have a good defense, solid pitching and get timely hits. It should be a great series to watch.”

Live stats and live video will be provided by Concordia at athletics.concordia.edu.

Perhaps the only noticeable difference between the two squads is in recent performances.

Concordia has won nine of its last 11 contests while LC has dropped six of its last nine.

Byrnes believes that his team will be able to shake off the tough finish.

“We're right where we want to be,” Byrnes said. “We played our first 40 games to get to this point. There are a lot of teams that have already packed up gone home for the year, so we're excited to still be playing meaningful baseball. Everyone is 0-0 now and all we need to worry about is finding a way to win 2-of-3 this weekend and earn our way to the championship tournament next weekend.”

Justin Reed, a senior right-handed pitcher and Byrnes' probably Game 1 starter, echoed his coach's sentiments.

“We still have a lot of confidence,” Reed said. “We've beaten everybody in the ASC East at least once this year and this side is traditionally the stronger of the two divisions. We're not scared of anybody we have to play either in Texas or here in Louisiana.

“We have a resilient team. There are a lot of mentally tough guys on this team and we're not going to let a tough weekend stop us from reaching the goals we set at the beginning of the year.”

Should LC win over Concordia and Texas-Tyler and Texas Dallas lose their respective first-round games, the ASC Championship Tournament would be held at Louisiana College next weekend.

Byrnes said he is less concerned with being a potential host for the ASC championship than he is with the task at hand.

“All we can worry about right now is putting all three phases of our game together,” Byrnes said. “We have to get good pitching, solid defense and timely hitting. I've told our guys all year long that what we need is for everybody to make the routine play and give us quality at-bats. If we can do those things, we'll be in there at the end with a chance to win it.”