By Andrew Krumme
This season has looked like one for rebuilding, and baseball coach Lelo Prado and his players have been making a statement the past several weeks on the baseball diamond to prove the success of their effort. Wins against top-tier programs like Tulane and Georgia have shed some light on the program and have many people looking forward to next year’s inaugural season in the Big East.
The Cardinals took two of three games from both the Bulldogs and Green Wave within the last month, quite an accomplishment since both boasted top-15 national rankings.
Despite their success against the big dogs, the Cards showed that they were still a little inconsistent by dropping four of their next five. They recovered with two wins over Houston this weekend, both only one-run victories.
“We definitely had a letdown last week with our play,” Prado said prior to the Houston series.
While the Cards’ recent skid may cause concern, the unveiling of the Jim Patterson Stadium Friday against Eastern Carolina will do nothing but put a bounce in their step as they gear up for the end of the season.
The $20 million facility will be one of the premier complexes in the country, seating 2,500. It will have a main press box with two radio booths, a television booth and an A.D. suite. It will be only the second NCAA baseball field that combines field turf and real dirt on the mound and in the batter’s box. There will also be a 30- by 40-foot Matrix Scoreboard and 17- by 7-foot video screen. State-of-the-art locker rooms, training facilities and batting cages will be housed in the adjacent building’s basement.
Prado said he is excited about the facility and the immediate and long-term benefits it will bring to the Louisville program.
“If you can’t get excited about playing in one of the nation’s best facilities, you need to pack it up and go home,” Prado said.
Though the project was slated to be ready for the season opener, the new facility has already been a catalyst in bringing in one of the best recruiting classes in the program’s history. “Our program will be that much easier to sell with the new field,” Prado said. There are already nine recruits from all over the country for next season, including the gem of the class, Chris Dominguez.
Dominguez is a 6-foot-5, 220-pound third baseman ranked by Baseball America as the number one third-base prospect and consensus top-10 player in the nation. Dominguez chose Louisville over the likes of powerhouse baseball schools such as Arizona State, Stanford and San Diego State.
Prado had high praise for Dominguez: “Chris will make an immediate impact, and is the type of player who can really elevate a program. He will be the highest-ranked player ever to step foot on a college campus in the state of Kentucky.”
Prado and the program are already feeling the positive effects the new facility will bring even before they’ve played a single game there.
