What high school student doesn’t want to play at the collegiate level?
For some that may never happen. Others it will.
“For some of us, its never gonna work out, just didn’t have it,” Zan Prejean said.
That is where club sports at LSU can come into play and allow a student access to a sport they love.
“It was exciting, you know, I love playing baseball. I played it back home a little bit, but it was something new with a bunch of guys I didn’t know. But these guys definitely became my closest friends in the last three years,” Will Topham said.
Its where LSU students can have the chance to play sports at the collegiate level without the time commitment of an NCAA program.
“It was exactly what I was looking for, still playing competitive baseball, still playing regularly but not the demands of an NCAA program,” current LSU Club Baseball President Michael Macchio said.
Club baseball hasn’t always existed at LSU. Zan Prejean was the one to come up with the idea after seeing other schools with one.
“Club baseball started two years ago. Zan Prejean and another member Zack Faircloth, they were playing on an intramural softball team and they thought how much more fun it would be to play actual baseball,” Macchio said.
“I still had the edge or the urge to play baseball and I looked around and saw some other schools had club teams and I even thought about going to a school that had a club team that I could play on. And then I realized, maybe I should start one here at LSU,” Prejean said.
But its not all about playing the sport or doing something you love, its about representing LSU.
“It means a lot you know. As a kid growing wanting to play college ball you always wanted to play for LSU, so to me its like the next best thing,” Matt Mancuso said.
“I love it, just to represent my school, its something bigger than myself and just to be part of a team,” Topham said. “I think its something really special.”
With the opportunity comes responsibilities of running the program and working together to be successful.
“We play Houston, Lone Star College, Rice, and Stephen F. Austin,” Macchio said.
Club baseball also gets to play in state rivals as well as SEC rivals like Alabama. 
“On the weekends we do two seven-inning games and a nine-inning game on a series,” Mancuso said. “We like to try to win all the series as we can.” 
“The spring is when we start our big series, and we always start with Alabama,” Macchio said. “We’ve played them two times and took the series both times. Then we get into conference play with big rival Tulane.”
And although its not the LSU Tigers baseball team coached by Paul Mainieri, the Club Baseball team gets the opportunity to go to the playoffs and even compete in a world series.
“The real competition, a chance to go to regionals and the World series and all, its all real, real feeling, so its a lot of fun,” Mancuso said.