The Louisville baseball team earned its fifth and highest top 20 preseason ranking on Monday as the Cardinals debuted at No. 12 in the Rivals.com Preseason Top 25.
The Cardinals are also ranked 13th by Baseball America, 13th by Ping! Baseball, 19th by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and 20th in the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll. Texas, the 2009 national runner-up, is the top ranked team in each of the five preseason polls. The complete 2010 Rivals.com Preseason Top 25 is available at http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/baseball.
Louisville is the reigning BIG EAST regular-season and tournament champions and finished 2009 ranked as high as 13th in the nation after advancing to an NCAA Super Regional for the second time in three years. The Cardinals return seven position starters, including All-American third baseman Phil Wunderlich, along with most of the pitching staff from their 2009 squad, which finished with a 47-18 record overall.
Wunderlich led the Cardinals in hitting in 2009 with a .367 average, was second on the team with 18 home runs and 78 RBI and was third on the team with 18 doubles en route to being named Second Team All-America by the NCBWA and Second Team All-BIG EAST. Louisville also welcomes back All-BIG EAST performers Andrew Clark (senior first baseman), Adam Duvall (senior second base) and Thomas Royse (junior right-handed pitcher) for 2010.
In head coach Dan McDonnell’s three seasons in Louisville, the Cardinals have made three straight NCAA appearances overall, two NCAA Super Regional appearances and one College World Series appearance. Louisville also ranks sixth nationally with 135 wins over the last three seasons for an average of 45 victories per year.
Louisville will open the 2010 season on Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. ET, in the first of three games against Bowling Green at Jim Patterson Stadium.
