Murray State Falls to No. 10 Louisville, 8-3

Tuesday, March 9

Louisville, KY

3 p.m.

Murray State

5-7

Louisville

8-4

Murray State

Louisville

Photo by: Darren Dedman

3/9/2021 6:37:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

The Murray State Racers Baseball team (5-7) fell to the No. 10 Louisville Cardinals (8-4) on Tuesday at Jim Patterson Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Murray State Racers hung with the tenth-ranked Louisville Cardinals but dropped its fourth consecutive game against a ranked opponent, losing 8-3.

Seth Gardner got his first career hit as a Racer, a solo home run to left field in the third inning while Brock Anderson was 2-for-5, with two singles.

Louisville continued to run wild on the base paths, showing why it's the NCAA leader in stolen bases. The Cards swiped seven today, including Levi Usher setting a new Jim Patterson Stadium record with five.

Murray State kept No. 10 Louisville off the board, except for two innings. The Cards scored five runs on five hits and two errors in the second and sealed the game in the seventh with a three-run home run.

The Racers jumped on the board in the first inning, Jordan Cozart reached on an error by the shortstop and moved to third on a single to right from Brock Anderson. He scored on a wild pitch to put Murray State up one early.

Murray State added another run in the second. Alex Crump used a lead-off walk to score on a fielder's choice throwing error by the Louisville pitcher, Tate Kuehner. Ryan Perkins was credited with the RBI.

Seth Gardner, making his second start as designated hitter, launched his first home run of his Racer career as they cut Louisville's lead to 5-3.

The game went scoreless through the next three innings. A strike 'em out, throw 'em out kept the Cardinals off the board in the sixth, as Alec Whaley got out of a bases loaded jam.

In the top half of the seventh, the Racers had runners on the corners with one out. True freshman Riley Hawthorne came up for his first collegiate at-bat, but went down looking.

Louisville native, Connor Holden came on to pitch with two outs in the seventh and one runner on base. The Cardinals added another runner on a fielding error by Trey Woosley and next batter Cooper Bowman homered to left field to increase the Cardinals lead to five.

The Racers struck out 11 times on the evening, seven of them coming to Kuehner.

The Murray State pitching staff featured six arms in the game. True freshman Cade Vernon (0-1) made his second start as a Racer, throwing 1.1 innings, allowing four hits and three earned runs, striking out one.

Jake Jones threw 2.0 innings in relief and gave up no runs. Alec Whaley made his team-high sixth appearance and pitched 2.2 innings, punching out one.

Murray State stays on the road, traveling to Eastern Illinois to open conference play on Friday for a three-game series. First pitch is schedule for 3 p.m.