Fresh off a sixth trip to the College World Series in June, the University of Louisville baseball team is back at it.

The Cardinals are in the midst of a fall campaign with two exhibition games and the annual Pizza Bowl. U of L traveled to Chicago and beat UIC 16-4 and 14-6 in a pair of games last Saturday. Now, the team will play an exhibition at home this weekend.

First pitch for Friday night’s exhibition against Eastern Kentucky is at 3 p.m. and admission to Jim Patterson Stadium is free.

“Great weather, free admission, Friday before a home football game,” U of L coach Dan McDonnell said. “First pitch will be at 3 p.m. and we’ll play all day. The NCAA gives us two days in the fall to play, so we’ll play for about three hours, take a little break, and start game two.

“It’s great practice. You get to see a lot of the retunees, and you get to see some of the new faces. We’ll have two lineups and for some of our fans that haven’t seen us since Omaha, come on out and check out the Cards. . . . We’ll probably play until around 10 o’clock.”

McDonnell said there will be food trucks at Jim Patterson for the evening.

In the games last weekend at UIC, McDonnell said he was pleased with what he saw from his veterans and also from his newcomers.

“I like what we saw,” he said. “We have a lot of veteran hitters, and it’s always good to see them perform well, but it’s also very encouraging when some new faces, some young guys, we got a lot of production from a lot of hitters and the same on the mound.”

In the first game last weekend, veteran outfielder Lucas Moore was 3-for-5 and five RBIs, including a two-run home run. Tague Davis, Ben Slanker, Jimmy Nugent, and Drew Freeman added home runs for the Cardinals. U of L finished with 16 hits in the contest.

Peter Michael was one of six pitchers to throw in the game, and he worked the first two innings and allowed just two hits.

Left fielder Jax Hisle and third baseman AJ Martin both had a home run and three RBIs, while Zion Rose smashed a solo home run in his only at-bat in that game.

Ethan Eberle worked a perfect two innings to start the second game and was the first of seven pitchers.

McDonnell said pitching coach Roger Williams will work out a rotation so that most of the pitchers will also see action this weekend against EKU.

The Cardinals will begin the best-of-seven Pizza Bowl fall World Series is expected to begin next week.