Louisville baseball sees season end with frustrating 4-3 loss to TCU

For the second time in three nights, the Louisville baseball team was handed a defeat despite out-hitting their opponents. This time, the loss cost the Cardinals their season.

U of L freshman starter Nick Bennett allowed four runs in a home half of the second inning that he didn’t survive. That proved to be all the offense TCU would need in a 4-3 victory Thursday night that left the Horned Frogs living to see tomorrow in Omaha.

Louisville appeared poised to make a comeback, scratching across a run in the 3rd inning and then adding two more on solo home runs to kick off the 4th and 5th frames. The bats went silent after that, however, as TCU reliever Sean Wymer entered the game and was dominant.

Adding to the frustration for Louisville were multiple close calls that replay appeared to show should have been called in the Cardinals’ favor, but ultimately went the other way. Included in that group was a tag play at home where a TCU runner appeared to be out, but was called safe, resulting in that run and a subsequent run to score. In the 8th inning, pinch runner Ryan Summers seemed to have cleanly swiped second base, but was called out. That resulted in Dan McDonnell leaving the dugout, and becoming the first coach to get thrown out of a College World Series Game since 2007.

How could it be worse, you ask ...

Just as the case was that year, a remarkable season slides away in the most unsatisfying of fashions.

Congrats to the baseball team on another terrific campaign, and now let’s prepare for the seemingly endless period of heat and despair that is the next 10 weeks of deadness to envelop us all.