Baseball's Pizza Bowl this weekend

Louisville's elite baseball team will have three open scrimmage games this weekend with the first starting Thursday at 3 p.m.

Each Fall, the baseball team ends its Fall workouts with a series of intrasquad scrimmage games called the Pizza Bowl. This year's series pits the Vrable Vikings (named for assistant coach Adam Vrable) vs. the Strader Raiders (named for student assistant Robert Strader).

The pitching matchups during this set of games as set to draw Major League Baseball scouts from all over America.

On Thursday, a pair of incredible freshmen righty pitching prospects returning from medical redshirts will square off with Noah Burkholder taking on Bryan Hoeing. Both were elite recruits coming out of high school.

Then on Friday at 2:30, junior lefty Brendan McKay, the back-to-back John Olerud Award winer, will take on All-American junior righty Kade McClure in a matchup that has scouts drooling. Both McKay and McClure could be first-round draft picks next spring.

The Cardinals will play Sunday at 2 p.m. and could possibly continue to play on Monday or Tuesday if necessary to complete the Best-Of-Five series.

So why is the series called the Pizza Bowl?

Per UofL's press release: "The winning team is rewarded by being served as much pizza as it would like by the losing squad, which in turn shares what is left."

STRADER'S RAIDERS

Michael Bollmer, Sam Bordner, Noah Burkholder, Chandler Dale, Drew Ellis, Daniel Fischer, Shane Hummel, Justin Lavey, Daniel Little, Michael McAvene, Matt McCarty, Brendan McKay, J.D. Mundt, Zeke Pinkham, Pat Rumoro, Phillip Sanderson, Josh Stowers, Ethan Stringer, Ryan Summers, Riley Thompson and Adam Wolf. Vrable’s Vikings features

VRABLE'S VIKINGS

Nick Bennett, Austin Clemons, Austin Dickey, Adam Elliott, Colby Fitch, Tyler Fitzgerald, Lincoln Henzman, Bryan Hoeing, Colin Lyman, Devin Mann, Rabon Martin, Kade McClure, Danny Oriente, Shay Smiddy, Ryan Smith, Jake Sparger, Hunter Sullivan, Logan Taylor, Mac Welsh and Logan Wyatt.