Louisville Baseball Begins Fall Ball on Monday
September 07, 2014 | Baseball
Senior infielder Zach Lucas and the Cardinals begin fall workouts on Monday afternoon.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The drive for a third consecutive trip to the College World Series for the Louisville baseball program begins in earnest on Monday as the Cardinals officially begin full-squad fall workouts at Jim Patterson Stadium.
Monday afternoon's practice will open six weeks of full-squad practice for Louisville in preparation for the 2015 season, the program's first in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The first week of fall workouts will conclude with a pair of open scrimmages on Friday (3 p.m., ET) and Saturday (11 a.m.) at Patterson Stadium.
"We've had a couple of weeks of great individual instruction since the start of the semester, so it'll be fun to get the full squad on the field and start fall ball," said Cardinals' head coach Dan McDonnell. "We have a lot to accomplish this fall as we work towards our goal of winning a national championship."
The Cardinals are tentatively scheduled to host weekend scrimmages every week until the conclusion of fall workouts in mid-October. Dates and times for future scrimmages as well as the annual Pizza Bowl series will be announced throughout the fall.
Louisville returns 19 letterwinners from its 2014 squad, which finished 50-17 overall, won the program's fifth regular season conference championship in six seasons and hosted NCAA postseason games for the second straight year. The Cardinals defeated Kennesaw State in the Louisville Super Regional to clinch their third CWS berth in eight seasons under the guidance of head coach Dan McDonnell. Louisville, which has hosted six different rounds of NCAA postseason baseball in the last eight years, ended the season ranked as highly as sixth in the national polls.
Leading the list of returnees for Louisville in the 2015 season is junior righthanded pitcher Kyle Funkhouser, a Second Team All-American in 2014 who set a school record for wins finishing 13-3 overall with a 1.94 ERA and 122 strikeouts in 120.1 innings. The Cardinals also return senior infielder and 2014 All-Conference honoree Zach Lucas, talented starting pitchers Anthony Kidston (junior righty) and Josh Rogers (sophomore lefty).
In his eight seasons guiding the Louisville baseball program, McDonnell has placed the Cardinals among the nation's elite with the three College World Series berths, four NCAA Super Regional appearances, seven NCAA Regional bids, five conference regular season titles, two conference tournament titles, 14 All-Americans and 359 wins overall (seventh most nationally during that eight-year span).
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