Cards Look to Cling to Top-4 Seed
Louisville softball is coming off another sweep over the weekend, putting them at 16-5 in conference play. They're 6-1 in conference series this season and have three sweeps. Louisville has lucked out a bit, as they avoided the top of the league in their schedule. Louisville did not have to play FSU, Duke, Virginia Tech, or Virginia, the other four teams in the top six of the league. The Cards did take care of business in their only competition against the top six, defeating Stanford in two of three games. While they did lose a series, that one came against the only other team in the league above .500 in Clemson.
The Cardinals currently find themselves in third place in the league, behind FSU and Duke. They're ahead of Stanford on the merit of win percentage, though just barely. The Cardinal are 18-6 and will be idle in ACC play this weekend. It'll be a scrap for the final bye slot, with Louisville at 16-5 and Virginia Tech at 15-6. VT is at Syracuse, and we all just saw how that went over the weekend. Assuming a sweep from the Hokies, Louisville will need to win two in Raleigh to force a three-way tie. The Cards can avoid that with a sweep of their own. That would give them an advantage over both opponents and leave VT and Stanford to fight amongst themselves.
Fortunately for Louisville, their weekend opponent is also struggling. NC State is 6-14 on the year, and they've been swept in two straight series against Stanford and Virginia. They swept Cal the weekend before, but the Bears are last in the league. The Wolfpack have a get-right game tonight against East Carolina, which is the return game of a home-and-home series. NC State beat the Pirates in Greenville in nine innings earlier this month.
Louisville has had a stellar season so far this year. A pair of wins would be ideal, but one win would give the Cards their best conference season since 2023. Two wins would net Louisville their best season since 2013. Back then, Sandy Pearsall's Cards went 47-13 (18-4) in the Big East. That was coming off of their best season ever, when Louisville went 55-5 (20-2) in 2012. All that is to say, 41-13 would still be good, but 44-10 would be even better. There is still a lot to do in the postseason, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Louisville is off in the midweek, but they'll get their final regular season series of the year underway at 7PM on Oaks Day. The ACC Championship will start on Wednesday, May 6th.
Until next time, Go Cards!
Case
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