It was a great weekend of baseball in Louisville at Jim Patterson Stadium. Thousands of Cardinal fans were in attendance to watch the Cards baseball team win three games straight and advance to the Super Regional of the NCAA Tournament.
On Friday Louisville cruised to an 8-3 win against Bowling Green. Coco Johnson (3-for-4, 3 R, 3 RBI, 2 HR) and Jeff Gardner (3-for-4, R, 2 RBI, 2B, 3B) led Louisville’s 10-hit attack in support of Chad Green (7 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K). Then on Saturday Miami’s Bryan Radziewski kept Louisville off the board until the seventh, when the Cardinals rallied for six runs, capped by Jeff Ratajczak’s three-run double. Jeff Thompson (6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K) was strong in a no-decision for Louisville, which held off Miami’s comeback bid in the eighth.
The Cards topped off their great regional run on Sunday getting their 49th win of the season eliminating Oklahoma State. The Cards got their offense going today as they scored 12 runs off of 12 hits. The Cards are now on their way to Nashville to face Vandy in the Super Regional which is the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Baseball Tourney and are two wins away from the College World Series. This is the 3rd Super Regional in the last 7 seasons for the Cards. They beat Oklahoma St in 2007 to advance to the College World Series and lost to Cal State Fullerton in 2009.
I don’t know how next weekend will go for this team as they will face a very strong Vandy team, but one thing that I’m sure of is that the University of Louisville program has cemented itself as a national power in the world of college baseball.