TicketsBearcat Win Streak Halted
Louisville outslugs UC, 15-12
Contact: Shawn Sell
3/18/2005
Logan Parker hit his team-best fourth homer on Friday vs. Louisville. |
CINCINNATI, Ohio---Louisville scored five runs in the first and went ahead to stay with a three-run sixth inning as the Cardinals earned a 15-12 win over Cincinnati in the opener of Conference USA play for both teams on Friday in the UC Baseball Stadium.
The Cardinals (10-6, 1-0 C-USA) touched four Bearcat pitchers for 15 hits, matching a season-high for hits allowed. UC, which saw its five-game win streak halted, recorded 13 hits on the day in falling to 8-6 on the year and 0-1 in league play.
LaFringe Hayes continued his hot hitting to lead the Bearcats, going 3-for-5 with three runs scored, a double and a stolen base. The junior?s performance stretched his hitting streak to 10 straight. Three other Bearcats tallied two knocks each, including Jon DeLuca who extended his career-best hit streak to 12 in a row. Logan Parker added his team-best fourth homer for UC.
Logan Johnson was the hitting hero for the Cards, going 4-for-5 with four RBI, including his second homer of the year. Boomer Whiting and Jorge Castillo each added three hits, while J.T. LaFountain drove in three.
Scott Jenkins (1-0) picked up the pitching victory for U of L, despite allowing four runs and six hits in four innings of relief work. Jenkins took over for a struggling Justin Valdes, who left after just one-plus innings. Bryan Wood (2-1) was tagged with the defeat after allowing five runs and six hits in just over an inning of action.
Louisville looked as if they might be headed for a rout, as they authored a five-run first inning against UC starter Tony Maynard. Nick Haley started the scoring with an RBI single, which Johnson duplicated later in the frame. With the score at 3-0, UC had a chance to get out of the inning when Daniel Burton grounded a potential inning-ending double play to Mark Muscenti. Muscenti got the out at second, but Mark Haske?s relay throw to first was wild, allowing two runs to score.
The Bearcats wouldn?t stay down long, as UC chased Valdes by sending 10 batters to the plate in the second. Neall French and Jack Nelson each had RBI singles in the inning, but it was a pair of Cardinal errors that allowed UC to pull even. Hayes was credited with a sacrifice fly when Isaiah Howes dropped a fly ball to left and another run scored on a Valdes fielding error. Haske added a sacrifice fly in the frame for the Bearcats.
Louisville regained a 6-5 lead in the top of the fourth on a LaFountain sacrifice fly, but found themselves down 7-6 after the UC half of the inning. Parker retied the score when he legged out an infield single that scored Hayes and Brian Szarmach put the Bearcats in front for the first time with a run-scoring double to right.
The scoring continued in the fifth as a trio of bloop hits produced three U of L runs. Derrick Alfonso, Chris Cates and Whiting all accounted for RBI singles in the inning. But once again, the Bearcats were able to knot the game, this time at nine, with a two-spot in the last of the fifth. DeLuca did the honors, driving a two-run double to left center that scored Muscenti and Hayes.
Louisville went ahead for good with one swing of the bat in the top of the sixth, ultimately ending the day for Wood. Johnson came up huge, driving a Wood offering to deep right with two runners aboard for the first homer in the UC Baseball Stadium this season. The Bearcats again wouldn?t stay down, as Parker led the sixth off with a homer over the scoreboard in right center to draw within 12-10. UC got the deficit to one when Muscenti recorded an RBI groundout.
Bearcat senior Kyle Markle allowed the home team to stay in the game, as he hurled three hitless innings of relief in his most impressive outing of the season. Matt Heber replaced Markle in the ninth and allowed the Cards three insurance runs. After a lead-off walk, a sacrifice bunt and an infield single, Heber had a chance to get out the inning. The freshman induced Haley to hit a comebacker and after forcing Whiting at second, Haske?s relay throw wasn?t in time to double up the latter. LaFountain made the Bearcats pay as he drilled his third homer of the year to right to put Louisville up 15-11.
UC had one last gasp in the bottom of the ninth as Hayes beat out a blooper down the left field line for a double and scored on a Haske single. But preseason all-conference selection Brian Halford got DeLuca to fly out and Nelson to ground out to lock up the victory.
?The best thing that happened for us today was that we played hard,? said Bearcat head coach Brian Cleary. ?We got back into the game after not such a good start. I think we were just a couple of plays away from a different result today. Tony (Maynard) clearly wasn?t as sharp as he has been, but he competed and gave us to a chance to win. It was just a tight game back and forth and in the end we just came up short.?
The two teams will contest game two of the three-game set beginning at 4 p.m. tomorrow. Sean Munninghoff will take the mound for Cincinnati, taking on U of L lefty Skylar Meade.