University of Louisville
No. 11 Florida
Louisville Baseball Drops Season-Opener at No. 11 Florida
February 20, 2009 | Baseball
Feb. 20, 2009
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Junior first baseman Andrew Clark was 3-for-4 from the plate and junior second baseman Adam Duvall homered in his first game as a Cardinal, but it was not enough as the Louisville baseball team dropped its 2009 season-opener 6-3 at No. 11-ranked Florida on Friday night at McKethan Stadium.
"We got beat tonight in the first few innings," said third-year Cards' head coach Dan McDonnell. "When we got within a run, we didn't hold them down and we let them extend the lead again."
The Cards, ranked as high as No. 8 in the preseason Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll, started slowly on a cool night on the University of Florida campus and were never able to fully recover. After a scoreless top of the first for Louisville, the Gators scored three runs in the home half to take an early lead. The inning started with leftfielder Avery Barnes reaching base after being hit by a pitch from Louisville starter Justin Marks.
After centerfielder Matt den Dekker struck out, third baseman Josh Adams singled down the left field line and was followed by the first big hit of the night, a triple to right center by first baseman Brandon McArthur to score a pair of runs and a 2-0 UF lead. McArthur scored moments later on a sacrifice flyout to centerfield by Preston Tucker to make it 3-0 after one inning.
After the Gators pushed their lead to 4-0 in the second inning, Marks started to find his rhythm on the mound for the Cards and sat down eight straight Gators during one stretch before leaving after the fifth inning. The junior from Owensboro, Ky., took the loss after giving up four runs, including three earned, on only three hits in five innings of action.
With no hits and a 4-0 deficit after three innings of play, the Cards' offense bounced back in the fourth inning as Clark, from New Palestine, Ind., doubled on the first pitch of the inning. He then advanced to third base after junior third baseman Chris Dominguez struck out swinging but reached base on a ball in the dirt. UF catcher Buddy Munroe threw down to second as Clark had started to third on the play. Clark then beat the throw of second baseman Clayton Pisani to reach third and Dominguez advanced to second on the play.
Junior leftfielder Phil Wunderlich made it all pay off as he singled to centerfield to score Clark and make it 4-1 Gators. After Dominguez advanced to third on Wunderlich's single, he then scored on a groundout to first by catcher Jeff Arnold to make it 4-2 Florida.
After scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth, Duvall pulled the Cards to within one in the seventh as the transfer from Chipola Junior College and graduate of Butler High School in Louisville hammered a two-strike pitch from Gators' starter Patrick Keating over the wall in left-center to make it 4-3.
But the Cards' momentum was short-lived as the Gators answered back in the home half of the seventh with two runs of their own for the final 6-3 margin. With Louisville sophomore righty Gabriel Shaw on the mound after replacing Marks in the sixth, the Gators opened the seventh with a single from Munroe and a walk to shortstop Mike Mooney.
Following the walk, Shaw was replaced by sophomore lefty Bob Revesz. After both runners advanced on a passed-ball on his first pitch, Barnes then pushed the lead to 5-3 with a single to left field and den Dekker made it 6-3 with an infield single.
After a 1-2-3 eighth inning, the Cards got a leadoff single in the ninth by Wunderlich, his second hit of the day in a 2-for-3 performance from plate, but were not able to put anything else together off of UF reliever Billy Bullock, who earned the save with two innings of scoreless of relief. Keating got the win for the Gators after giving up three runs, including two earned, on four hits in seven innings of work and seven strike outs.
Game two of the UofL-UF series is set for Saturday at 1 p.m., ET, while the finale is scheduled for Sunday at Noon ET. The Cards plan to send sophomore lefty Dean Kiekhefer (1-1, 4.88 ERA) to the hill for Saturday's game against Florida freshman Alex Panteliodis. On Sunday, Louisville expects to start junior Matt Lea (5-0, 2.72 ERA) against freshman lefty Nick Maronde.
Live audio for the entire Louisville-Florida series can be heard through CardsTV at UofLSports.com.
Following the season-opening series at Florida, the Cards will return home for four straight games at Jim Patterson Stadium. The 2009 home-opener is set for Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET against Eastern Kentucky and will be followed by a three-game weekend series against Bowling Green.
