Astros Foundation College Classic roundup

This weekend at Daikin Park, a Texas baseball tradition that marked its 25th year continues: the Astros Foundation College Classic, in which six college baseball teams descend on the Lone Star state competed in an annual tournament featuring many future MLB stars.

¡°There have been a lot of future Major Leaguers who have come through here for this tournament,¡± said Steve Grande, the Astros¡¯ director of communications. ¡°Alex Bregman was a big one, Max Muncy, Gerrit Cole came in with UCLA, Anthony Rendon with Rice. We¡¯ve really had a 'Who¡¯s who' of baseball -- in the last 10 years, we¡¯ve had 23 first-round Draft picks play in our tournament.¡±

? Buy tickets for the 2025 Astros Foundation College Classic

Those players included Drew Gilbert, Heston Kjerstad, JJ Bleday, Josh Jung, Shea Langeliers, Alex Lange and the list goes on.

The teams participating haven¡¯t been bad, either. For the second consecutive year, the defending national champions will be featured in the tournament. Tennessee defeated Texas A&M -- another powerhouse team in this year¡¯s tourney -- in last year¡¯s college World Series, and will play in the College Classic. In 2023, LSU defeated Florida for the national title and was among the teams to participate.

The other four teams in this year¡¯s tournament were the University of Arizona, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State and Rice University.

FULL SCHEDULE

Friday

Mississippi State 14, Rice 3
Tennessee 5, Oklahoma State 2
Arizona 3, Texas A&M 2

Saturday

Tennessee 13, Rice 3
Arizona 6, Mississippi State 5
Oklahoma State 4, Texas A&M 0

Sunday

Tennessee 5, Arizona 1
Oklahoma State 9, Mississippi State 7
Texas A&M 14, Rice 4 (7 innings)

¡°If you go back and look at some of the championship-level competition we¡¯ve gotten here, we¡¯ve had four defending national championship teams come in, and two in a row,¡± Grande said. ¡°We¡¯ve had the No. 1 team in the country play in our tournament -- this year will be the eighth time [Texas A&M].

¡°We¡¯ve also had teams that have played here go on to win the national championship in the same season. Just the quality of teams we¡¯ve had here in Daikin Park has been incredible.¡±

The rosters for this year¡¯s teams were stacked with players on MLB Pipeline¡¯s Top 100 Draft prospects list:

Jace LaViolette, OF, Texas A&M (No. 2)
Brendan Summerhill, OF, Arizona (No. 10)
Dean Curley, SS, Tennessee (No. 24)
Gavin Kilen, 2B, Tennessee (No. 28)
Nolan Schubart, OF, Oklahoma St. (No. 30)
Andrew Fischer, 3B, Tennessee (No. 42)
A.J. Russell, RHP, Tennessee (No. 43)
Gave Davis, RHP, Oklahoma St. (No. 63)
Nate Snead, RHP, Tennessee (No. 69)
Ryan Prager, LHP, Texas A&M (No. 70)
Liam Doyle, LHP, Tennessee (No. 75)
Mason White, SS, Arizona (No. 82)

Each of the nine tournament games were televised by Space City Home Network and available on the channel in the entirety of the Astros¡¯ five-state viewing area. Seven of the nine games were on the primary channel, with Saturday¡¯s morning and afternoon games airing live on the Space City Home Network alternate channel.

All nine games also were streamed live on Astros.com and on the Astros¡¯ X, Facebook and YouTube channels.

Nationally, MLB Network aired three games outside of the Astros¡¯ viewing area:

Feb 28 -- Arizona vs. Texas A&M on delay at 11 p.m. CT/12 a.m. ET

March 1 -- Oklahoma State vs. Texas A&M airs live at 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET

March 2 -- Tennessee vs. Arizona on delay at 9 p.m. CT/10 p.m. ET