By: Hannah Walker–
The No. 6 Louisville Cardinal’s baseball team played against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers on Mar. 23. The game was held at Jim Patterson Stadium in honor of breast cancer awareness night. Louisville won with a final score of 13-6.
At the start of the game, U of L sophomore Luke Smith was the starting pitcher. He was successfully able to face 11 batters and make 3 strikes during the first three innings. Overall, a decent start on defense for the Cardinals.
The game was neck-to-neck during the first five innings of the game. WKU started off with one point earned during the top of the first inning. Louisville followed in suit during the bottom of the first inning. Sophomore catcher Henry Davis grounded out to second base and junior outfielder Luke Brown scored.
No points were made during the second and third inning, but that was no problem for either team. U of L was able to score two points during the bottom of the fourth inning. Sophomore infielder Alex Binelas and junior infielder/outfielder Lucas Dunn added points to the scoreboard.
WKU continued to stay on Louisville’s toes when they made a homerun to left center during the top of the fifth inning. However, U of L was able to score three points of their own during the bottom of the fifth inning. Sophomore infielder Cooper Bowman and Binelas both helped to put Louisville in the lead.
U of L stayed strong throughout the remainder of the game, with the help of Bowman making a homerun to left field during the bottom of the sixth inning. U of L continued to stay headstrong when they made another two points during the bottom of the seventh inning as well.
During the eighth inning, Louisville was able pull a final seven-point lead. Freshman infielder Christian Knapczyk advanced to third and scored, and junior outfielder Trey Leonard scored as well.
During the postgame interview, head coach Dan McDonnell commented on how he feels going into the weekend game series with the winning streak his team has going for them.
“Every game is important, and we just didn’t play well last week. We’re good, but we’re not good enough to take our foot off the break pedal. We have to be the hunter, we have to be the aggressor, and we have to have the edge.”
Louisville baseball will play their next game against Notre Dame this weekend starting Mar. 26 at 4:00 p.m in hopes of keeping their winning streak.
Photo Courtesy of Justin Krueger//U of L Athletics
