By: Hannah Walker–

The No. 3 Louisville Cardinal’s baseball team hit the road on Tuesday to Kentucky Proud Park to face the Kentucky Wildcats during Battle of the Bluegrass. U of L won with a final score of 12-5.

U of L sophomore Carter Lohman was the starting pitcher of the night. He was able to pitch for the first two innings with a pitching total of 42. He was also able to have one groundout and four strikeouts: leading to a great start on defense for Louisville.

During the top of the first inning, junior outfielder Trey Leonard made a hit from UK’s pitch. This allowed sophomore infielder Alex Binelas to advance to third as well as sophomore catcher Henry Davis. It wasn’t long that junior infielder/outfielder Lucas Dunn walked, Binelas advanced to third and Davis scored.

Following Davis’ score, freshman catcher Dalton Rushing doubled down infield line, Dunn advanced to third and Leonard scored.

U of L continued to score when junior outfielder Luke Brown grounded out to first base, Rushing advanced to third and Dunn scored. This put Louisville at a five-run lead going into the second inning with Kentucky at zero scores.

During the top of the second inning, Binelas singled through the right side, sophomore infielder Cooper Bowman advanced to second and Brown scored.

After Brown scored, sophomore infielder Levi Usher grounded out to first base, Bowman advanced to second and Brown scored again. UK still had no scores going into the fourth inning.

During the top of the fourth inning, Rushing made a homerun to center field and Dunn scored. UK tried to catch up to U of L during the fourth inning when they made one run, but Louisville had a 10-run lead going into the fifth inning.

U of L didn’t have any scores during the top of the fifth and sixth inning, but UK had one score during the bottom of the fifth and one score during the bottom of the sixth inning.

U of L started to score again during the top of the seventh inning when Binelas singled through the right side and Davis scored. UK continued to lag behind with zero scores made during the bottom of the seventh inning.

U of L didn’t have any scores during the top of the eighth inning, but UK was able to make two scores during the bottom of the eighth inning. Still, Louisville stayed in the lead with a score of 12 going into the ninth inning.

Neither the Cardinals nor the Wildcats made any scores during the top of the ninth inning. This led U of L to the win.

“We knew it was going to be a dog fight for all nine innings,” said head coach Dan McDonnell during a postgame interview. “Kentucky has a great offense and we knew they were going to score their runs. We fortunately scored enough to keep a gap between them up until the ninth.”

Louisville was supposed to play again April 23 at 6:00 p.m. against Pittsburgh at Jim Patterson Stadium, but the game has been cancelled due to a COVID positive case.

Photo Courtesy of Justin Krueger// U of L Athletics