Louisville to Host Regional

[cygnus34]

Cards win Big East, will host regional

Pound UConn 11-3for Big East title

By Greg Auman • Special to The Courier-Journal • May 24, 2009

  CLEARWATER, Fla. — The University of Louisville baseball team delivered on high expectations, and then the NCAA delivered a first-ever home regional for the Cardinals.

The top-seeded Cardinals (44-15) beat sixth-seeded Connecticut 11-3 Sunday at Bright House Field to repeat as Big East Tournament champions. And they'll open the NCAA Tournament at home because the NCAA then selected Louisville as one of 16 hosts of regional tournaments Friday through Monday, June 1.

"We were excited about playing with a lot of momentum coming into the week," said sophomore designated hitter Phil Wunderlich, one of several players who sported Mohawk haircuts. "We just wanted to keep rolling, but stay hungry. We knew we won the regular season, but we have a lot more baseball to play."

Wunderlich hit home runs in each of Louisville's last three games, but the middle-of-the-order bats have been there all season. The Cardinals got an unexpected boost from freshman pitcher Tony Zych, who pitched six strong innings, allowing one run in just his second career start.

"Like a lot of freshmen, we threw him to the fire," coach Dan McDonnell said. "He's been in a lot of pressure games this year as a closer and reliever … we knew he was prepared for this, and he did a great job of throwing strikes."

Zych left with a 6-1 lead, but Connecticut made things interesting, scoring twice on four hits in the seventh. The Huskies had the tying run at the plate with two outs, but reliever Gavin Logsdon got Nick Ahmed to strike out.

The regional will be held at Jim Patterson Stadium. The Cardinals' three opponents will be announced at 12:30 p.m. EDT Monday, when the NCAA reveals the full 64-team field.

"From an administration side and our expectations, this date was brought up back before the season started," McDonnell said. "We felt that we could have an opportunity to host a regional this year and fortunately we played well enough to do it."

[SRQ]

nicely written by Greg for the Louisville paper