Louisville baseball won its ninth Regional Title in school history over the weekend. How the Cards are winning in an unusual manner.
For the ninth time in program history, the University of Louisville baseball team will be playing in a Super Regional.
After not playing postseason baseball since 2019, the Cardinals returned to their winning ways by securing the number 12 national seed and hosting a regional.
Postseason play opened up for the Cards on Friday with a 7-2 win over the Redhawks of Southeast Missouri State.
However, just as things went in 2019, it would not be smooth sailing for the Cardinals after their first game. A red-hot Michigan Wolverine team gave the Cardinals fits all day on Saturday. An off start from Jared Poland and an offense that just could not get the big hit led to Michigan picking up a 7-3 win.
An unconventional run
With its back up against the wall, needing to rattle off three straight wins, Louisville settled in for a long day of baseball on Sunday that started with an 8-5 win over Oregon. The Cards received big pitching performances from Carson Liggett, Michael Prosecky, and Tate Kuehner as well as home runs from Cameron Masterman and Dalton Rushing to propel them to a win.
This set the team up for their rematch with Michigan, once again needing a win to survive and force a game 7. Not only did they win, but the Cardinals won big. 20-1 big. An explosion of offense and gutsy pitching performance from Riley Phillips forced a winner-take-all game on Monday afternoon.
After throwing over 80 pitches in his start on Friday, Garrett Schmeltz returned to make the start against a deflated Michigan team. After falling behind early, the Cardinal offense picked up where they left off and put up 7 runs in the first inning. After a weather delay of an hour and a half, the game resumed and the offense could not find the groove that they were in before the delay. Michigan began to slowly chip away at the lead before taking a 9-7 lead over the Cards. Then came the eighth inning.
Down to their final four outs, Rushing picked up a walk that was followed by a controversial Jack Payton double. While many were convinced Payton was out at second, there turned out to be not enough evidence to overturn the original call of safe. Following the long replay, Levi Usher came through with a two run single before the big blow of Masterman.
What began as a two-run deficit to start the inning, became a two-run lead going into the ninth.
Michael Prosecky came on to pitch a clean inning for his eleventh save of the season and punched a ticket to College Station for Super Regional action.
What can be said about the offense that has not already been said? A slower start to the weekend finished with the Cards putting up 31 runs in the final two games of the weekend. The bats showed up like everyone expected them to and it does not get more fun than watching this team swing the bat.
Of course, the big storyline of the weekend is the production by Masterman. He had not had a home run since April 26th before exploding for four long balls this weekend, with the final nuke being the biggest swing of his life so far
As for other big performances, not enough can be said about Usher. He had ten hits on the weekend, including the base hit that tied the game for Louisville on Monday. Through the first two weeks of the season, Usher was hitting .111. Now he has broken out as a vital part of the offense. He carries a .294 average with 36 stolen bases into Supers.
There is no doubt that the offense has carried this team and they will continue to do so against Texas A&M.
Louisville baseball’s weakness becomes a strength
The Achilles heel of this Louisville team has always been its pitching depth.
However, the Cards received huge pitching performances all weekend when it mattered the most.
Schmeltz had one career start prior to this weekend. He made two starts, throwing a total of nine innings and 130 pitches in the span of three days.
Tate Kuehner made three appearances out of the five total games that were played.
Riley Phillips shut down Michigan for five innings while striking out a career-high eleven batters.
In five games played and a lengthy lightning delay, this pitching staff came up big when it was needed the most. Going into College Station for a three-game series with Texas A&M will be a daunting task.
However, it is hard to not feel confident about the direction that the pitching staff is going in.
All in all, there were eight Cardinals named to the all-regional team. Tate Kuehner, Riley Phillips, Logan Beard, Christian Knapczyk, Ben Metzinger, Cameron Masterman, Levi Usher, and Jack Payton all took home those honors
To top it off, Masterman is bringing home the title of regional MVP.
All in all, however, Louisville baseball scored 48 runs over a 5-game stretch during the most critical part of the season.
The Cards will continue to rely heavily on their electric offense as they look to win 2 out of the next 3 to advance to Omaha.
