The grass is brown and the trees are bare in Charleston, which is why Eastern’s baseball team will take its show to Alabama.

Eastern will play three games in three days against Southwest Missouri State, Kansas State and Louisiana-Monroe.

Southwest Missouri made the College World Series last year but headed into this year returning just two of their nine position players. They also lost six of their seven star pitchers.

However, head coach Kevin Guttin thinks his team can continue to compete at a high level.

“We were old last year and we’re very new now,” Guttin said. “It’s going to take some time for our new guys to come together. It doesn’t happen overnight. You just have to do the things you’ve always done.”

As for this weekend’s tournament Guttin sees his team as its own biggest threat.

“If we don’t play well fundamentally, we’ll get beat,” Guttin said. “We play baseball, not our opponents.”

Guttin expects his two returning starters to produce some runs unlike last weekend in Arlington, Texas when the big bats didn’t show up.

Eastern head coach Jim Schmitz said the Panthers will throw junior college transfer Kyle Widegren against Southwest Missouri’s Derek Drage, who is 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA, on Friday.

Eastern’s second opponent, Louisiana-Monroe, has already started its season and is 3-3 with a 2.50 team ERA.

“We returned a lot of pitching,” head coach Brad Holland said. “Our strength is our pitching staff.

“We’re solid one through 12,” he said. “We have good starters, good relievers and a good closer.”

In this weekend’s tournament, Holland echoed the thoughts of Guttin.

“I don’t know if anybody’s really a threat this weekend,” Holland said. “We have to worry about ourselves and not what other teams are doing. We have to control the controllables.”

Schmitz said Eastern will throw left-handed Ted Juske against Louisiana-Monroe’s southpaw Justin Lynch on Saturday.

The Panthers third and final opponent in this weekend’s tournament is the Kansas State Wildcats of the Big 12 Conference.

Kansas State enters the tournament under new head coach Brad Hill.

Hill compiled a 418-91 record in nine seasons at Division II Central Missouri State and looks to continue that success at Kansas State.

Hill was unavailable to comment on his team’s outlook on this weekend’s tournament but Schmitz said he will throw Kirk Miller against the Wildcat’s probable starter, Nick Ponomarenko, who is 0-1 with a 29.70 ERA in his only start this season.

Schmitz is eager to get the season started to see what kind of team he has.

“With four or five main arms gone, there is a lot of newness,” Schmitz said. “We still have some guys competing for positions.”

If Schmitz’s arms and bats hold up, the only worry he has is the weather.

“I just hope the weather clears up and we get to play,” Schmitz said.