Cats Fall to Louisville, 4-1, in Regional Final

Alright it’s late, I've been at the ballpark for 13 hours, and I have to be at work at 7:30, so let’s get to it. After defeating Kansas, 8-6, earlier in the day and waiting through a nearly four hour rain delay, the Kentucky baseball team (37-25) fell to Louisville ( who will host the Super Regionals next week) in a tense Regional Final in which benches cleared in both the top and bottom of the seventh inning on collisions at the plate. Louisville third baseman Alex Chittenden was hung up in a run down between third and home after a sharp ground ball to Max Kuhn at third. First baseman Thomas Bernal was covering the plate after catcher Micheal Thomas chased Chittenden back towards third. Kuhn threw to Bernal who had Chittendon out easily but the Cardinal third baseman attempted a low “slide”, leading with his forearm right at Bernal’s knee. Both benches cleared but no one was ejected. In the bottom half of the inning, Bernal tried to score from third on a flyout to center. The ball beat Bernal to the plate but the Wildcat first basemen barreled over the catcher, hitting him up high in assumed revenge for the previous inning. Bernal was immediately ejected (correctly per the rules) and A.J. Reed played the rest of the game at first. Head Coach Gary Henderson was very short in his post game comments about he collision but knew the Bernal was going to be ejected. “He ran into him. I didn’t get an explanation. I didn’t ask him (Thomas Bernal) about that (Getting ejected). I haven’t talked to him about it" Freshman Logan Salow pitched the game of his life. For a career high six innings and 95 pitches, he (like his fellow freshman Zach Brown against Kansas) gave the Cats exactly what they needed, a long outing that kept the Cats in the game.  “I don’t think you could have drawn up better Freshman starts", Henderson said of both Salow and Brown. "Certainly very proud of Logan’s effort tonight… A real step forward from where he was in the Fall and where he was when he came to us. He’s grown up.” The southpaw allowed just one run, on a bases loaded single in the third. He got the next batter, AAC Player of the Year Jeff Gardner to ground into double play to end the inning. Salow would also work out of a bases loaded jam in the fifth. The Cats' lone run of the night came in the seventh as Storm Wilson was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Bernal walked; both runners then advanced on a balk. Senior shortstop Matt Reida made the most of a Louisville miscue( a dropped pop fly in foul territory) with an RBI groundout to first to score Wilson. Pinch hitter Kyle Barrett flew out to center on a sliding grab by Cole Sturgeon (the Most Outstanding Player of the Regional) who popped up and threw out Bernal at the plate, leading to the ejection. A.J. Reed final at-bat as a Wildcat was a 6-5-3 double play into the shift, which had foiled the slugger all night. He finished the season with 73 RBI and will remain tied for most single season homeruns at 23. “I’ve really enjoyed him (AJ Reed) a lot, for a lot of different reasons. Anytime you work with kids that are smart, who have a sense of humor, and are accountable and responsible for what they do, and do well in the classroom", Henderson said of his two-way star. "He is a kid who is willing to listen to your thoughts, your ideas, your demands, whatever they may be at that point and time, and he just does what you ask him to do. And he’s the beneficiary of that.” The wheels came off for the Cats in the top of the seventh as Sam Mahar replaced Salow on the mound. Mahar walked the leadoff man, allowed the second batter to reach on a bunt single, and threw a bunt from the third down the right-field line, allowing the second run of the game to score. After a strike out, single and double followed allowing two more Louisville runs to score to make it 4-0 and ended Mahar’s night. Freshman Zack Strecker came on to record the next two outs but the damage was done. The loss ends the careers of several Wildcats including seniors Micheal Thomas and Matt Reida and juniors Reed and Cousino who are assumed to be high picks in the MLB Draft later this week. While losing to Louisville sucks, we will always have this: http://youtu.be/pfFXeOrEUqw and this: http://youtu.be/AZ25h-VvHmY Go Cats