LOUISVILLE — Despite his successful 16-year tenure featuring multiple conference regular season championships, NCAA regional and super regional titles and College World Series appearances, University of Louisville baseball coach Dan McDonnell still has a glaring hole in his resume.
Somehow, over the course of 316 victories in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Cardinals have somehow failed to win an ACC Tournament championship during their seven years in the league. They’ll get another chance this week.
After closing out the regular season over the weekend by winning a series against Virginia, U of L (38-16-1, 18-11-1) took the Atlantic Division title for the fifth time and earned the overall No. 2 seed in the tourney at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina
The Cards begin play in Pool B at 11 a.m. today against No. 11 seed Pittsburgh (27-26, 13-16), then will face No. 7 Georgia Tech (33-21, 15-15) at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Each team in the four pools will play one game against each of the other two opponents in its pool through Friday. The four teams with the best records within their respective pools will advance to Saturday’s 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. semifinals with the winners playing for the championship at noon on Sunday. If two teams are tied at the completion of pool play, the team with the highest seed will advance.
Louisville didn’t play Georgia Tech, but dropped two of three at Pitt in early April, winning 14-6 and losing 8-7 and 6-3. The Panthers lost seven of their last eight games. The Yellowjackets ended the regular season on a six-game winning streak while averaging 12 runs per game.
Should U of L advance out of pool play, it would play the Pool C survivor in the semis — either No. 3 Miami (39-16, 20-10), No. 6 Wake Forest (39-16-1, 15-14-1) or No. 10 NC State (33-20, 14-15). Virginia Tech (40-11, 19-9) is the top overall seed.
“It’s the epitome of strike one and you better make all the plays because if you don’t establish strike one and you don’t make plays and you give good teams a fourth out in the inning, you pay for it,” McDonnell said. “I thought we left Charlotte last year … we gave teams fourth and fifth outs and it hurt because we needed to win down there.”
This is one of the strongest ACC fields in recent years. Ten teams are projected to get NCAA bids, with five as potential regional hosts. The ACC has four of the top 15 offenses in the country and five league teams rank among the top 25 in batting average, home runs and runs.
U of L is ranked No. 8 in the country in RPI and are projected to host a regional at Jim Patterson Stadium.
The Cards enter the tourney with a league-high eight selections to the All-ACC team, including Defensive Player of the Year in centerfielder Levi Usher. The senior from Fairfax, Iowa, made a number of elite defensive plays and earned ESPN SportsCenter’s No. 1 play for his robbery of a home run against Clemson.
“I said it in the preseason, and sometimes these guys make me look smart, that we have the best centerfielder, or one of the best, in the country,” McDonnell said. “He’s been robbing home runs it seems one a week, and making great catches in the gap and cutting them off.”
In addition to his outstanding defensive work, Usher leads the ACC in stolen bases with 33 and hit .279 with 22 extra base hits and 40 RBI.
Other Cards earning All-ACC honors were pitchers Jared Poland and Michael Prosecky, outfielder Cameron Masterman, catches Dalton Rushing and Jack Payton and infielders Christian Knapczyk and Ben Metzinger. Furthermore, U of L is in the top three in the league in six major offensive categories and the top five in three others.
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