2025 Softball Shows Improvement from 2024 Season
The 2024 Louisville softball season ended with a bit of disappointment as the Cards finished 27-25 with no ACC Tournament or NCAA Tournament appearance. The Cards finished 11th in the ACC with only the top 10 teams making the conference tournament. They lost seven of eight ACC series but were only swept once.
One of the biggest downfalls to last season was a total of 14 losses coming by two runs or less or in extra innings. While it is uncommon to be on the wrong end of most of your close games played in a season, every once in a while you come across an extra unlucky year.
Last year's team started 8-0 and found themselves 12-2 before stepping foot inside Ulmer Stadium. They went 5-4 in the first couple weekends at home.
This season, Louisville is off to a 16-7 start and already matched the number of ACC series wins from last year with one. They have also looked better early on at home, going 6-2 in the first two weekends with the only losses coming to Northwestern and Notre Dame, the former having made the NCAA Tournament last season.
The high-powered offense has scored eight or more runs nine times this season and has even posted double-digit runs five times. Defensively, UofL has allowed three runs or less 16 times this season. They have not surrendered double-digit runs but Liberty and Purdue both dropped nine runs against the Cards.
As we have mentioned on the weekly podcast and in past articles, a key factor to the early success of this team is speed and aggressiveness. From top to bottom, Louisville has a lineup full of players who can kick it into second gear at a moments notice. On the basepath, Louisville set the program record for number of successful steals in a game with eight against Bellarmine. They also have a game with seven successful stolen bases. Advancing runners into scoring position has created more R.B.I.'s and scoring opportunities that may have been absent last year.
In terms of power hitting, five Cardinals have hit a home run so far this season: Char Lorenz (4), Bri Despines (2), Ava Venturelli (1), Katie Thatcher (1), Madison Pickens (1). While this number is low, the Cards have made the most of their home runs, registering wins in all of them.
The Cards are back in action and remain at home when Eastern Kentucky makes a visit to Ulmer Stadium on Wednesday at 5:00pm. After that, the Cards will host Virginia Tech over the weekend.
(Softball photos by Jared)
Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!
Jared
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