By Russ Brown
NKyTribune correspondent
LOUISVILLE — A six-game winning streak in the NCAA Tournament has gone by the wayside, as has a bid to stay in the winners’ bracket of the College World Series past two games for the first time ever.
So now the University of Louisville baseball team faces a daunting task: Win three elimination games in three days to advance to the best-of-three championship series. In other words, win or go home. All told, it would take five victories in six or seven days for UofL to win the title.
The No. 7 Cardinals (53-11) found themselves in that position Tuesday night due to a 5-1 loss to No. 3 Florida (49-18) in TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb.
For Louisville, freshman lefty Nick Bennett (5-0, 2.70 ERA) is the probable starter (UofL Athletics Photo)
First up for the Cards in what amounts to a potential pressure-packed three-game weekend series is No. 5 TCU (48-17) at 8 p.m. EDT Thursday. If they defeat the Horned Frogs they must beat the Gators in back-to-back games Friday and Saturday to advance to the title round beginning Monday.
During the regular season, Louisville won 11 of its 12 three-game series — losing the final one to Florida State — while sweeping seven. Of course, the competition wasn’t the caliber of TCU or Florida.
“Well, I think we’re what, one of six teams left in Omaha,” UofL coach Dan McDonnell says. “So I think they’ve got to be excited. I know I’m excited. So we’ve just got to take advantage of the opportunity we have and go out there and compete against a really good team. I’m assuming we’ll face the highest draft pick who went to college last year and it’s a great opportunity.”
McDonnell was referring to freshman lefty Nick Lodolo (5-1, 4.22 ERA), who was drafted 41st out of Damien high School in LaVerne, Calif., by the Pittsburg Pirates last spring and was the highest unsigned draft pick. Lodolo pitched an inning of relief Sunday in the loss to Florida, so he would certainly be available against UofL.
However, coach Jim Schlossnagle indicated that senior righthander Mitchell Traver (4-1, 3.79 ERA), who hasn’t pitched in the first two CWS games, is his likely choice to face the Cards.
For Louisville, freshman lefty Nick Bennett (5-0, 2.70 ERA) is the probable starter. Bennett hasn’t pitched since working five innings in the 8-7 win over Xavier in the clinching game of the Louisville Regional on June 4 when he went five innings, allowing seven hits and three runs.
Bennett, the No. 3 starter in the weekend rotation for the ACC Atlantic Division champions, has recorded 59 strikeouts in 63.1 innings. UofL has won all 14 games in which Bennett has pitched, including 12 starts. The Cincinnati native was named to several Freshman All-America teams.
TCU, playing in its fourth straight CWS and its fifth in the last six years, landed in the losers’ bracket in its debut by falling to Florida 3-0, just the second time this season that the Horned Frogs were shut out. They bounced back Tuesday to eliminate Texas A&M 4-1 behind the pitching of senior righthander Brian Howard, who struck out 12 in seven-plus innings.
The Horned Frogs insist they’re not intimidated by the prospect of having to claw their way out of the losers’ bracket to reach the championship series.
“The way we look at it is, ‘OK, we were going to have to win a bunch of games in a row and play really good baseball to win this thing, anyway,” Howard says. “We’ve just got to go out and play our game and see where it takes us.”
Said shortstop Ryan Merrill: “Obviously, we would have liked to have won the first game, but like Coach says, you can still win this whole tournament losing the first game. We’re set up. We’re not freaking out. We’re ready to go.”
Like Louisville, TCU came into the CWS unbeaten in NCAA Tournament play after sweeping both the Fort Worth Regional and Super Regional. The Horned Frogs won the regular season Big 12 title and their first four games in the conference tourney before losing to Texas 9-3 in the final.
TCU’s strength is its experience and pitching staff, where the star is closer Durbin Feltman, a sophomore righthander who leads the nation with 17 saves. The Frogs’ most consistent hitter is outfielder Austen Wade, who is batting .333, but catcher Evan Skoug leads the team in homers (20) and RBI (68).
“I think the depth we have and the pitching staff, the experience we have on the position player side, I think we’re built to do anything we want to do,” Schlossnagle says. “And that’s what gives us hope the rest of this tournament. We’ll have to put together some great baseball over the next week or so, but nobody is panicking whatsoever.”
Louisville got off to a great start, beating A&M 8-4 on Sunday, but fell victim to Florida’s power Tuesday night. Gators’ leftfielder Austin Langworthy hit an opposite-field solo home run off Kade McClure that bounced off the foul pole in left field in the third. Then Deacon Liput slammed a two-out, three-run homer over the right field fence in the fourth, only his third homer of the season.
“That’s baseball. That’s part of it,” McDonnell says. “I thought our guys competed. I thought Kade threw well. He just had that one hiccup in the fourth and I know that’s going to eat him up. This time of the year, you can’t overemphasize anything too much. They’ve played a lot of games. THey understand what it takes to win.”
And pitcher/first baseman Brendan McKay says he and his teammates also understand how they must approach TCU if they hope to stay alive.
“Take the positive from the Florida game and do your best to take the negatives and turn them into positives,” he said. “Then take those negatives and just wash them away out of your mind, have a good practice (Wednesday), clear your mind and do whatever you need to do to be in that mental state to when you wake up (Thursday) morning you’re ready to go.”
