Miami Hurricanes routed in opening Super Regional game at Louisville, face elimination Saturday

Winning streaks. Losing streaks. None of it mattered to the Miami Hurricanes Friday afternoon when they arrived at Louisville for the NCAA Super Regional game, two wins away from earning a trip to Omaha for the College World series.

Miami hasn’t been to the big show since 2016, an eternity for a storied program that once was a kingpin in college baseball. Yes, to be back on the doorstep meant a lot.

But the long absence also meant that nobody on the Miami roster was seasoned for the challenge that the Hurricanes faced on the road at Louisville.

The Canes became unraveled in a five-run third inning and lost Game 1 of the three-game series to the Cardinals 8-1, removing any margin of error that is left to the 2025 season.

Game 2 will be Saturday at 11 a.m. on ESPN, with a potential winner-take-all Game 3 at a time to be determined on Sunday.

It’s assumed the Miami starter will be Griffin Hugus. At regionals he threw 123 pitches in a complete game win over Columbia (allowing one run). On the year he is 6-7 with a 3.90 ERA. 

“That one got away from us quickly,” Miami Coach JD Arteaga said. “We had our chances in that game. We left eight guys on in the first four innings.”

Friday it was a game between two teams who each lost six of their last seven regular season contests, but found a formula to win their regional and get into this Super Regional position. The question was who could retain that magic and who might revert back to what maybe it had been all along.

Miami entered the game 8-16 on the road this year. But this was a suddenly confident team, not the same group of guys who labored through an inconsistent season.

Louisville chose to start Patrick Forbes, who was 3-2 on the season with a 4.62 ERA. But those stats were a little deceiving as he also had 98 strikeouts in 60.1 innings and only allowed opposing batters to hit .211.

Forbes was a little wild early. In the top of the second, he walked Dorian Gonzalez and Tanner Smith and then hit Fabio Peralta with a pitch to load the bases with one out.

But Michael Torres and Jake Ogden both struck out swinging as Miami missed a golden opportunity to jump in front.

Louisville seized on the momentum in the bottom of the inning with a pair of solo homers by Garret Pike and Jake Munroe off Miami starter AJ Ciscar to take a 2-0 lead. Pike, a leftie, hit a fastball up in the zone to the opposite field and Munroe powered a Ciscar pitch 430 feet over the center field wall.

The Hurricanes fought back. Daniel Cuvet was hit by a pitch, Gonzalez doubled down the right field line and Derek  Williams walked to load the bases with one out. Renzo Gonzalez hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Cuvet. But then Will Smith struck out swinging to leave Miami down a run.

The Canes felt they were in a good place.

But when he returned to the mound, Ciscar was suddenly really struggling. He went 6-1 this season with a 3.78 ERA and was strong at regionals, throwing seven innings in the win over Alabama while allowing just six hits and three runs, walking one and striking out eight. But on this day, at that moment, Ciscar lost his control and that meant trouble against a strong-hitting Louisville team.

Klein doubled to left and then Ciscar intentionally walked Rose and hit King with a pitch to load the bases. Ciscar got Pike to hit a grounder back to him but he unfortunately threw wildly looking to get the force out at home that likely would have started a double play. That allowed two runs to score. With Ciscar now clearly rattled, he then served up a hanging slider over the plate to Munroe who homered again far over the left field wall.

Just like that, Miami now trailed 7-1 with a lot of work to do. took the loss after allowing six earned runs on seven hits over 2.1 innings.

The Hurricanes had runners on second and third with two outs in the fourth, but Forbes struck out Cuvet with a 96MPH fastball.

Miami’s bullpen limited the damage the rest of the way, allowing just one additional run on a sacrifice fly from Munroe in the fourth. However, the Hurricanes’ offensive struggles persisted, finishing 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and 2-for-16 with runners on base.