LSU’s baseball program welcomed nearly 200 former players to the opening of the new Alex Box Stadium last weekend prior to sweeping a three-game series with Villanova.And this weekend will be another reunion, as the Tigers welcome back two former assistant coaches to Baton Rouge.Central Florida coach and former LSU pitching coach Terry Rooney and Central Florida assistant coach and former LSU hitting coach Cliff Godwin will be in the opposite dugout when Central Florida and LSU square off in the three-game series starting tonight.But for Tigers’ coach Paul Mainieri, this reunion won’t be a pleasant one. “Win or lose, it’s not a very enjoyable experience to play against a former assistant,” Mainieri said. “But I’ve got a job to do, and my loyalty is to my team and my university.”Rooney served as the Tigers’ pitching coach and recruiting coordinator from 2007-2008, improving the Tigers’ ERA from 5.10 in 2007 to 4.11 in 2008. Rooney also spent three seasons as pitching coach under Mainieri at Notre Dame from 2004-2006.As LSU’s recruiting coordinator, Rooney also helped recruit most of the talent that has the Tigers ranked as the No. 1 team in the nation.”We were there for two years, and the reality is coach Godwin and I either coached or recruited that entire team,” Rooney said. “I think being able to tell our kids that and tell our recruits that, it shows them that we know what it takes from a recruiting and a coaching standpoint.”Rooney said he looks forward to spending another weekend in Baton Rouge despite the difficulty of facing his friend and former players.”When you coach players, you’re with them every single day, so you build relationships,” Rooney said. “I am excited to see some of the people who I had that bond with this weekend.”One of the players Rooney built that bond with is LSU sophomore centerfielder Leon Landry. Landry said it will be a different feeling seeing his former coach in a different dugout.”It’s going to be a great honor to play against those guys for once,” he said. “We’re excited, and I’m pretty sure they are too.”Like Rooney, Godwin he will enjoy seeing the players he helped guide to the College World Series last season. “I’m looking forward to seeing coach Mainieri and all of the players, obviously,” he said. “It’s been a while, but we obviously have a lot of good memories there.”But Rooney and Godwin’s task will be to lead the Knights against the No. 1 ranked team in the country, which has jumped out to a 4-0 start to the season.LSU junior second baseman Ryan Schimpf and sophomore shortstop DJ LeMahieu have led LSU’s early season offensive output and have combined to go 17-for-28 on the season with 11 RBIs. Against Central Florida, the Tiger hitters will be facing a pitching staff that allowed 20 runs in a four-game series last weekend against Virginia Commonwealth. Rooney said Central Florida senior pitcher Kyle Sweat will start tonight’s game and junior Austin Hudson will pitch Saturday for the Knights. Sophomore pitcher Anthony Ranaudo will get the start on the mound for LSU.Sweat pitched five shutout innings in the Knights’ opening day win last Friday against VCU, and Hudson allowed four runs in four innings in UCF’s 10-9 loss on Saturday.Despite the odds being stacked against him this weekend, Rooney said the most important thing early in the season is instilling the same mentality into his team that Mainieri instilled into LSU when the Tigers were struggling two seasons ago. “It’s about playing with passion and intensity and giving it everything you’ve got no matter what the scoreboard says,” he said. “That’s a large part of what this weekend and the first half of this season will be for us.”—-Contact Casey Gisclair at [email protected]