The Louisville Cardinals (39-21) defeated the Miami Hurricanes (34-26), 8-1, in Game 1 of the NCAA baseball super regional series Friday evening at Jim Patterson Stadium.
U of L and head coach Dan McDonnell are now just one win away from their sixth trip to the College World Series and first since 2019. It’s a huge improvement on last year’s campaign, which ended with a loss to Clemson in the ACC Tournament.
The Cards will face the Hurricanes back at home again Saturday at 11 a.m. in what could be a series-deciding game.
McDonnell was asked about what his message to the team will be Saturday morning before first pitch.
Nine innings to Omaha, perhaps?
“I won’t say that word,” McDonnell answered. “I think this group has done a phenomenal job of just really enjoying the journey.
“… What they saw tonight, and what they get a chance to be a part of tomorrow, they don’t need to worry about anything else, man. Just enjoy Jim Patterson Stadium, and we get a chance to play a really good ACC conference opponent in Miami.”
Here are a couple takeaways from Louisville’s Game 1 win over Miami:
Louisville’s starting pitcher was incredibly clutch on Friday.
Miami loaded the bases with just one out twice: first in the second inning and then in the third. In both instances, walks and Hurricanes hit by pitches landed the Cards in a high-pressure situation.
But rather than letting that pressure rattle him, right-handed pitcher Patrick Forbes threw perfectly timed strikeouts each time to helped U of L avoid an early deficit. He pitched two in a row to end the second inning and one to put the third away after left fielder Zion Rose snagged the previous batter’s fly ball.
“It’s not, I would say, an easy atmosphere to pitch (in) from excitement,” McDonnell said. “He’s already got electric stuff, so controlling electric stuff (is) not necessarily the easiest when you’re that juiced up and adrenalized. Buddy did a phenomenal job of getting through that tough inning, that bases-loaded inning. And that really gave us the juice and energy to run off the field with that momentum.”
Forbes left in the sixth inning to a standing ovation from Louisville fans. He threw 107 pitches, including 63 strikes (good for nine strikeouts). Forbes also allowed four hits, one run and walked four batters. He was replaced by right-handed pitcher Brennyn Cutts, who threw 34 pitches (including 25 strikes for two Ks), allowed one hit and walked one batter in 1 and 1/3 innings. Lefty Justin West (one strikeout, one hit) relieved Cutts at the top of the eighth.
By the game’s end, Miami had left 12 batters on base.
After a more-than-modest start, which included back-to-back out-of-the-park homers in the second inning from Garret Pike and Jake Munroe, U of L’s offense exploded in the third.
Five different batters scored to stretch Louisville’s lead from 2-1 to 7-1. Munroe hit a three-RBI homer in his second at bat to help Pike and Eddie King Jr. score. It marked Munroe’s first multi-homer game of the season.
The junior later flied out to right field in the fourth inning, but even that at bat allowed Matt Klein to score. Munroe ended the game with a team-high five RBIs.
“This guy, to my right (Munroe), man, he was locked in and swinging it,” McDonnell said. “You could put this guy in the six-hole. Woof. As he said, with Matt Klein being back in the lineup, we’re really stretched out. We’ve got some some options. Jake’s hit third, fourth, even sixth. We’re just kind of splitting up the righties and the lefties, and it’s a good game for us all the way around.”
Louisville announced that all session tickets had sold out Wednesday morning. And despite a weather delay that pushed Game 1’s start time back from 3 p.m. to 3:36 p.m., Cards fans showed out for the first NCAA super regional at Jim Patterson Stadium since 2019.
U of L baseball played in front of an announced crowd of 5,776. The fans made themselves heard at key moments. They stood for almost every final pitch of a Forbes or Cutts strikeout and chanted “C-A-R-D-S” after pivotal plays to keep momentum on Louisville’s side.
Forbes called the crowd “huge for the momentum,” and Munroe said “we (players) 100% feed off of it.”
That is, until a weather delay in the bottom of the eighth inning forced spectators out. During warmups, Louisville’s dugout started its own “C-A-R-D-S” chant and even tried to get a wave going as both teams prepared to wrap Game 1 up in a nearly empty stadium.
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Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.
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