The weather's warming up, the forsythias are blooming, and entire posts are being dedicated to single Louisville baseball games. It's officially spring.
The Cardinal Nine bounced back from a gut-wrenching loss to Kentucky by pulling off a wire-to-wire 12-8 victory over visiting Marshall (14-16-1) Wednesday evening.
U of L's big bats did the vast majority of the damage, as two, three and four hitters Josh Richmond, Justin McLanahan and Chris Dominguez went a combined 10-for-15 and drove in eight runs. McLanahan was especially impressive, bouncing back from a 1-for-6 performance against UK to go 3-for-5 with a home run, three runs scored and four more driven in.
In addition to the big effort from the meat of the order, each of the other six Cardinal starters had at least one hit.
James Belanger (4-1) worked five innings to pick up his fourth victory of the season.
Louisville (17-13) now heads to Tampa for a weekend set with South Florida, beginning Friday at 7 p.m.
Only eight of the 12 teams in the Big East make the postseason tournament, and with spots 5-9 (a group that includes both U of L and USF) in the current standings all deadlocked in a virtual tie, each series becomes increasingly important for the Cards.