Seasons of hard knocks overcome Cards restored joy, belief to baseball program with run to CWS

By RUSS BROWN Photos By UofL Athletics 

Athletic teams at the University of Louisville are on a real roll, with a series of feel good success stories throughout the 2024-25 school sports calendar just completed. 

First, there was the continued success of football coach Jeff Brohm, the wildly popular hometown hero who is entering his third season with the Cardinals. Last fall UofL posted a nine-win record as an encore to his 10-4 mark in 2023, defeating Kentucky for the first tie in six seasons and capping the year with a win over Washington in the Sun Bowl. 

Then came the inspirational charge by the volleyball team to the NCAA championship game in the KFC Yum! Center, led by local star Anna DeBeer and coach Dani Busboom Kelly. DeBeer, a senior, missed the game with an injury and it also proved to be the final game at UofL for Kelly, who accepted the head coaching job at Nebraska after the season. 

We didn’t know it at the time, but when volleyball ended, the Louisville basketball team, under the direction of first-year coach Pat Kelsey, had begun what was to become a remarkable turnaround from the short-lived Kenny Payne era that produced an historically bad 12-52 record. Kelsey, a surprise hire from College of Charleston, guided the Cards to a 27-8 record, including a second-place 18-2 mark in the ACC and the program’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2019. 

And this spring the UofL baseball team joined the party by making an unexpected run to the College World Series (CWS), where it advanced to the semifinals for only the second time in history. Here’s a closer look at the program and prospects for next season. 

It had been an unusual drought for coach Dan McDonnell’s team, which had missed the NCAA Tournament three of the last four seasons after failing to qualify only once previously in his 19-year tenure at the school. And the dry spell weighed heavily on McDonnell’s shoulders, as his family and others could testify. 

“My wife will tell you, I’m not easy to deal with when we’re losing and the last couple years were rough. I mean, they were rough,” McDonnell said after sweeping the Nashville Regional 3-0. “I hate to get emotional, but these guys have made it special, really fun, even though we went through some real tough times this year. But I just kept pounding into them, like guys, that’s part of it. It’s how you grow, and we definitely grew.” 

Last year’s failure to be awarded a spot in the 64-team field especially gnawed at McDonnell. 

“Just call it what it is,” he said. “We were disrespected as a program, players, coaches. Even (recruiting) commitments were backing out and dropping like flies, as if we weren’t a program that we built here. Yes, there was a chip on my shoulder. There was a chip on our players’ shoulders. There was a chip on this program’s shoulder. We were humble and hungry.” 

It looked as if the Cards might be absent from the tournament again this year when they dropped six of their last seven regular season games and were one-and-done in the ACC Tournament. 

They earned a No. 2 seed in the regional, but were counted out there too, since the No. 1 overall national seed, Vanderbilt, was a heavy favorite on its home field. But they upset the Commodores in the second game on their way to the title. 

Louisville then won the best-of-three Super Regional at Jim Patterson Field to punch their ticket to the CWS in Omaha, Neb. The Cards lost their opener in the double-elimination tourney to No. 8 national seed Oregon State, then won pressure-packed elimination games against Arizona and a rematch with the Beavers before running out of steam in an 11-3 semifinal loss to No. 13 Coastal Carolina, which won its 26th consecutive game and which McDonnell called “a well-oiled machine.” 

This wasn’t expected to be a CWS team, but the Cards showed resilience and resolve, and true to the Muhammad Ali name on their helmets, kept getting up off the mat after getting knocked down as McDonnell liked to point out. 

When the magic finally ran out, there were no tears for McDonnell, only joy for the way this UofL team (42-24) returned the program to the heights it had become accustomed to under his guidance, which has now produced 14 seasons of 40 wins or more. 

“I just want to tell these guys how much we appreciate them, how much joy they brought to the City of Louisville, to our fan base, to the university, to the athletic program, and especially to the baseball program,” McDonell said.”They restored this program and got it back to where we’ve always expected to be, where we’ve proven we could be. And if we just get the right support, that’s a place we can come back to without a six-year drought. So I’m just super proud of these guys, especially in the postseason. It was something special. Man, I’m filled with joy. 

“I’m thankful to be the head coach at the University of Louisville. My wife and I just love it. As hard as the last few years have been, oh my gosh, it’s been hard, but we’re very thankful, man. We’ve built something special here. . .and I hope I can be here another 5-10 years or however long they’ll have me.” 

So, what’s ahead for U of L? McDonnell has a solid core of young players for next season, if most of them stick around. Three of the top five hitters are sophomores -- Lucas Moore (.350), who was the leading hitter during the regular season; Zion Rose (.314) and Alex Alicea (.309). Junior Jake Munroe was second on the team in hitting (.346, with 13 homers).

Rookie Tague Davis was the ACC’s home run leader with 17, a school record for a freshman, and he was named a Freshman All-American by two organizations. 

UofL also will have an experienced pitching staff headed by freshmen Ethan Eberle (6-2) and Jake Schweitzer (4-3, team-best 2.34 ERA) and junior Tucker Biven (5-0, 3.71 ERA). Promising sophomore Parker Detmers, who missed the postseason with an injury, also returns. 

Most of all, McDonnell, who noted that he had “been preaching the stuff the last few years and it hasn’t been working,” hopes the returning players view this year’s CWS appearance as confirmation that “I’m not full of crap.”