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No. 22 Baseball Falls to UConn in BIG EAST Second Round
May 25, 2012
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Handcuffed by Connecticut lefty Anthony Marzi, the 22nd-ranked Louisville baseball team suffered a 4-1 loss to the Huskies in a second round game at the 2012 BIG EAST Championship on Friday at Bright House Field. With the loss, the Cardinals (39-19) will return to action on Friday night (6 p.m., ET) in an elimination game against USF. The Huskies (31-25-1) advance to the semifinal round where they will play the winner of tonight's Louisville-USF game tomorrow at 1 p.m. Fans can follow the live play-by-play action in Friday night's elimination game on News/Talk 1570 AM (WNDA) in Louisville or through CardsTV at UofLsports.com. Live video and live scoring of the game will be available online at www.bigeastbaseball.com. The Cardinals matched a season-low with just four hits while scoring only an unearned run against Marzi, who added five strikeouts to go with two walks in 8.2 innings to earn his third win of the season. Closer Scott Oberg retired the final out of the game in the ninth to earn his ninth save of the season. For Louisville, junior right-hander Justin Amlung (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier HS) was charged with four runs on a season-high 10 hits with six strikeouts and two walks to suffer the loss and drop to 8-4 on the season. At the plate, junior first baseman Zak Wasserman (Stevensville, Mich./Lakeshore HS) was the only Cardinal with more than one hit finishing 2-for-4 overall. Following back-to-back scoreless innings to start the game, the Huskies were first to break through plating two runs on four straight two-out hits in the third inning against Amlung. After back-to-back singles from first baseman Tim Martin and second baseman L.J. Mazzilli started the inning, third baseman Ryan Fuller followed with an RBI single to left to score Martin for the first run. Shortstop Tom Verdi then connected for an RBI single to center to score Mazzilli for the 2-0 advantage. After a scoreless fourth inning, Louisville cut the deficit to 2-1 in the fifth with the unearned run against Marzi. After reaching base on a one-out fielder's choice and advancing to second, sophomore catcher Kyle Gibson (Henderson, Ky./Henderson County HS) scored as a groundball went under the glove of Verdi at his shortstop position. However, UConn answered quickly scoring two runs in the bottom of the fifth to push the lead to the final 4-1 margin. The first run of the inning came as Mazzilli scored from third on a double steal with Verdi taking second base, while the second run scored when Verdi crossed home plate on an RBI single to left by leftfielder Eric Yavarone. Offensively, Mazzilli was 3-for-4 with two runs for the Huskies, while Verdi finished 2-for-3 with a run and an RBI. Friday's second round game was originally scheduled for Thursday night but was postponed due to rain. Louisville's path to the program's third BIG EAST Championship title in five years became much more difficult with Friday's loss as the Cardinals now must win four games in less than 48 hours. Fans can follow Louisville baseball on Twitter at http://twitter.com/uoflbaseball and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ulbaseball.
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