Omaha Bound

Baseball Punches The First Ticket to Omaha

I hope Peyton Manning wasn't in town yesterday, because he would've been one very confused person with so many people talking about Omaha.

The Baseball team punched their ticket to Omaha, with the 6-2 win over Kentucky.  Brendan McKay with 6 2/3 innings in the win, with Sam Bordner coming in for relief.  The scoring was didn't come in overwhelming waves, but rather slow, but steady progress throughout the game.  OK, well, it did get started with a bang, with Drew Ellis ripping a solo shot, scoring a touch-em-all in his 2nd straight game, in the top of the 2nd inning.  (Due to NCAA rules, Louisville, despite being the host school, was the "away" team in this game.)  The Cards put up another in the 5th, when Logan Taylor collected a walk to get on base, advanced to 3rd on a Colby Fitch single out to right, and tagged for the score on a Devin Mann sacrifice out to right center.  Kentucky would claw one back in the bottom of the 5th.

In the 6th, and Drew Ellis comes back to up to bat.  Again?  Sure, why not.  Solo shot to left, that I thought might've gotten caught by the firefighters on the overpass 500 ft beyond left field.  Devin Hairston picked up a walk and scored on a Josh Stower triple down the left field line making it 4-1.  The Cards would load the bases up again, but a double play at 1st and home got the BatCats out of the inning.

UK would get one more back in the bottom of the 7th, but UofL would come back and put 2 more up on the board in the 8th.  Tyler Fitzgerald walked, and scored on a Logan Taylor double.  Taylor would then score on a Colby Fitch single to right center.  That gets you to the final 6-2 score, and it was just a matter of getting through another inning and a half before the dogpile and celebration.

Huge credit to Kentucky as they played extremely well this season, and have a huge potential in front of them.  This was their first trip to a Super Regional, but it certainly won't be their last.

E Ends in 14th

We spoke, yesterday, on The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour about Emmonnie Henderson's last hurrah as a Cardinal Thrower on the Track and Field Team.  After climbing to a 2nd place finish in shot put on Friday, "E" would end up in 14th in the disc throw yesterday.  That may be a little bit of a disappointing finish, but it's truly an amazing accomplishment for Henderson to have advanced this far in her throwing career.  We hope she can continue her training, maybe find a few sponsorships to help her along, and perhaps make a 2020 Tokyo Olympics appearance.

She does have another year of overall eligibility left in athletics, but we don't expect to see her back out on the hardwood again.

The Summer Slump Has Arrived

Case, Julie "JC" Sullivan, and myself were in the radio studio again yesterday.  It's always great to JC with us, and it's particularly great to have folks that can carry on a great conversation as we head into the summer slump with so little on the schedule to talk about.  We digressed a bit, but we did get some good discussions in about Cardinal Baseball; Track and Field, including the latest UofL NCAA Championship, Edwin Kibichiy's win in the 3000m steeplechase (like hurdles, but with traps!).  We also got to hear a little about Case's adventures in Tough Muddering (that's a word, now), including some electroshock therapy?  You'll have to check it out, for all the gory muddy details.

-- JMcA