Baseball Opens Fall, Will Host Scrimmages Friday and Saturday
September 07, 2016 | Baseball
First pitch for open scrimmages set for 3 p.m., ET on Friday and 2 p.m., on Saturday
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The University of Louisville baseball team opened its fall practices with afternoon sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday at Jim Patterson Stadium, while the first set of intrasquad scrimmages are slated for Friday and Saturday.
The Cardinals hosted a closed practice session Tuesday before opening Wednesday's practice to the media, which met with head coach Dan McDonnell and junior pitcher/first baseman Brendan McKay. The first scrimmage of the fall is set to begin at 3 p.m., ET on Friday, while Saturday's scrimmage is scheduled for 2 p.m. Batting practice is expected to begin 75 minutes prior to first pitch each day and both scrimmages are open to the public.
"The summers are long and we accomplished a lot with our camps, recruiting and with our players competing throughout the summer. To get everyone back together as a team and as a program in the fall is a lot of fun and like most falls, this one is centered on competition," McDonnell said. "As everyone knows, we lost a lot of older, experienced and talented players to pro ball, so there are a lot of positions up for grabs. Last year, we hit that in the team meeting and made it clear there is no entitlement. We have six weeks and we're going to try to get 19 scrimmages in so that we can let these guys play the game and compete."
The Cardinals will continue workouts into mid-October with scrimmages set for each week before closing the fall with the annual Pizza Bowl series. Louisville ended the 2016 season with a 50-14 record overall after winning its second straight ACC Atlantic Division championship, advancing to its fourth straight NCAA Super Regional and reaching the 50-win plateau for the fourth time in school history.
Fans can follow Louisville baseball on Twitter (@UofLBaseball) at http://twitter.com/uoflbaseball and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ulbaseball.
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