Here is your recap of the first day of action in the Louisville Regional.
Middle Tennessee State 5 Vanderbilt 4
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Middle Tennessee won its first game in the NCAA Louisville Regional in dramatic fashion defeating in-state rival Vanderbilt 5-4 on Friday afternoon.
The Blue Raiders (44-16) led throughout the game but the Commodores (34-26) closed the gap to one in the eighth inning and held on for the win.
“It is a great win. All of the wins are great from here on out because we are trying to win this tournament and the next to get to Omaha. I am very proud of this team but to compete like they have the last month it doesn’t surprise me. I have said all week the last column on the scoreboard would be the most important because I didn’t anticipate Kenny striking out a lot of batters,” Peterson said.
Louisville 8 Indiana 2
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Junior lefty Justin Marks allowed only four hits in seven innings to earn school record win No. 11 and lead the No. 12 ranked Louisville baseball team to an 8-2 win over Indiana in front of a school record crowd of 4,605 fans on Friday night at Jim Patterson Stadium in the NCAA Regional opener for both teams.
With the victory, the top-seeded Cardinals (45-15) advance to a winner’s bracket contest with No. 2 seed Middle Tennessee, a 5-4 winner over Vanderbilt, on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET at Jim Patterson Stadium. No. 4-seeded Indiana (32-26) will face No. 3 seed Vanderbilt on Saturday at 3 p.m., in the first elimination game of the 2009 Louisville Regional. Tickets for Saturday’s NCAA Regional games will go on sale at noon ET at Jim Patterson Stadium.
Hosting its first ever NCAA Regional, Louisville leaned on Marks and the Owensboro, Ky., native delivered again with his second career NCAA Regional win and his third NCAA Championship win overall. He allowed two earned runs on four singles with eight strikeouts to improve to 11-2 on the season. The 11 wins is a new Louisville single season record and the eight strikeouts takes his career total to 300 in three seasons. For his career, Marks is the Cards’ career leader in wins with 29, ERA at 2.83 and strikeouts.
Louisville Recap
Indiana Recap
