Louisville softball is swiftly approaching the 2025 regular season. Similar to past seasons, the Cards will spend a majority of February in warmer weather, this time playing 16 games in three and a half weeks in Florida. Only six of those opponents made the NCAA Tournament last year and none of them advanced beyond the NCAA Regionals. For a fairly young team, playing lighter competition early can be beneficial, especially due to the caliber the ACC will bring.
Notable returners and upper classmen include junior pitcher Alyssa Zabala, senior infielder Ally Alexander, senior infielder Maddi Grant, and junior outfielder Chelsea Mack. Zabala is in line to be the ace again this season and will have plenty of help from other pitchers such as Sam Booe and Brooke Gray. Alexander suffered a hand injury for part of last season, but has been the utility player for many infield positions over the years. Grant has been an on-off player in terms of starting or playing a reserve role, but her bat picked up quite a bit during the back half of last season. Mack, who transferred in from Kentucky a couple years ago, is expected to take control of center field again and will be a speedy base runner on offense.
Last year’s Louisville team had some offensive woes, scoring three or fewer runs in 22 out of 52 games played. Softball is often a high-scoring game so you want to aim for higher than 0.5 runs per inning each game. The Cards gave up six or more runs (double the three runs previously mentioned) 16 times last season. Some pitching and infielder woes helped contribute to allowing high scores, both things we hope to see cleaned up this season.
In close games where the score differential was two runs or less or went to extra innings, the Cards went 10-14. While they were able to find a way to win in 42% of those games, you want to see that number far higher. It is good to be competing in those games, especially against tough teams such as Duke, Clemson, and Florida State, but the best teams find a way to pull a win out. If the Cards found a way to turn half of those close game losses into wins and went 17-7, their overall record would have been 34-18, a good enough mark to make the NCAA Tournament. Sadly, 27-25 kept the Cards on the outside looking in.
The hype has been pretty high so far this season so we will see what Holly Aprile and her crew are able to do to help propel Louisville back into the postseason.
Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!
Jared
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