By Jesse Welte

The University of Louisville softball team garnered a trio of victories this past week, improving their record to 22-16 and 5-1 in the Big East.

They defeated Indiana University on Wednesday evening, 1-0 and followed with a doubleheader sweep against the University of South Florida, squeaking by 3-2 and 5-4.

In the IU game, freshman pitcher Kristen Wadwell retired 15 straight batters after allowing a walk to the leadoff batter. Senior Catherine Bishop pitched a scoreless sixth inning, seeing her first action since being sidelined with an injury on March 14. Wadwell came back in to pitch the seventh and secured the victory.

“I was very pleased with the way Kristen Wadwell pitched [against IU], she did great job,” said U of L head coach Sandy Pearsall. “We did what we needed to do to score, and I thought we played great defense.”

Senior Audrey Rendon led the Cardinals’ five-hit attack going three for three and scoring the only run of the game. She recently became the all-time hitting leader in school history.

Wadwell, who holds a 5-5 record, allowed no hits and struck out four over six innings of work, en route to her second shutout of the season.

The Cardinals will look to avenge their 6-3 loss to the University of Kentucky (18-17) on March 7, when they play host to the Wildcats tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Ulmer Stadium.

UK, which has struggled to a 4-12 start in SEC play, is led by senior shortstop Brooke Marnitz, who is one of 25 candidates for the 2007 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Award. Marnitz leads the team with a .406 batting average, and leads the SEC with 14 home runs and 45 RBI.

Freshman Natalie Smith is second on the team, batting .395 on the season with 27 runs scored. Senior Katie Campbell is batting .378 with nine home runs and a team-leading 10 doubles.

“We are coming off a long week of difficult games. We have the Easter weekend off which is something that all the players are looking forward to,” said head coach Eileen Schmidt. “The weather is not ideal, but we need to really guard against a let down at this time. We need to come out and play hard, leave it all on the field.”

Senior Audrey Rendon leads the Cardinals with a .354 batting average, along with seven doubles, five triples and 22 runs scored. Senior Courtney Moore is fourth in batting average at .324, but leads the team with seven home runs and 22 RBI.

However, U of L will have to rely on great pitching and even better defense tomorrow if they hope to tame the Wildcats.