College World Series: Era Ends For Louisville Legends

OMAHA—Run to the roar.

After two straight years of stunned, heart-wrenching endings, that’s the mantra Louisville coach Dan McDonnell tried to impart on his 2017 Cardinals all spring. He plucked it from the Bible—like the devout McDonnell often does—telling his Cardinals the tale of the pit with a lion on a snowy day. McDonnell tells his players that true courage isn’t about winning. It’s about stepping into the battle. It’s about running toward the roar of the lion and staring that lion down.

In 2015, it was a controversial fair-foul call on a home run by Cal State Fullerton’s David Olmedo-Barrera in the Louisville Super Regional that served as Louisville’s lion pit—that ended its season. In 2016, it was a pinch-hit, ninth-inning grand slam by UC Santa Barbara, once again in a home super regional.

On Thursday night, in the eighth inning of a College World Series elimination game against Texas Christian, the Cardinals found themselves faced with yet another lion. Down by one run, pinch-runner Ryan Summers sprinted toward second base and—to the naked eye—appeared to slide in just before a high tag.

When second-base umpire Mark Winters called Summers out, McDonnell immediately noticed the body language of his players. He heard the anguished cry of the Louisville fans in the stands—and he ran toward the roar.

Not figuratively. McDonnell sprinted out of the first-base dugout as though he were trying to steal second base himself. He stared down Winters and yelled something he apparently should not have yelled. As he turned his back toward Winters and stepped back toward the dugout, the umpire ejected him from the game.

McDonnell was relegated to the Louisville clubhouse for the ninth inning, torn away from his players as they came up short against TCU. The Horned Frogs won, 4-3.

Once again, for Louisville, heartbreak.

“Obviously, I lost my cool,” McDonnell said, holding back tears, from Louisville’s clubhouse after the loss. “I just fought for my guy, knowing the point in the game and knowing how valuable that base was, but I’m never going to stand behind a camera and blame an umpire or anything like that. That’s not the reason we lost. I don’t know if I should’ve been thrown out, but that’s not my call to make. But I definitely fought for my guys and just wanted to stick up for them.

“. . . People can tweet or write or whatever they want to say about it—I just don’t want to take the emphasis off the kids, the talent. They just lost to a national seed, a great team in TCU who’s been here four years in a row. I’d rather the emphasis be on the game, how well-pitched it was, how well-played it was, how well-coached it was.”

The game itself, as McDonnell said, was well-played and well-coached—even if it wasn’t well-umpired. And the focus, most certainly, should be on the players.

Cruelly, McDonnell wasn’t there for the final moments, didn’t get to witness the ending of a significant era not only for Louisville (53-12), but for all of college baseball. This year’s ending also meant the end for third baseman Drew Ellis, for closer Lincoln Henzman, for shortstop Devin Hairston, for College Player of the Year Brendan McKay—all drafted within the first six rounds. McKay’s college career ending, in particular, is especially significant. There’s a case to be made that he’s the best college player of all time—certainly one of the most decorated.

A two-way star for three years and the No. 4 overall pick to the Rays, McKay was a three-time first-team All-American and the Freshman of the Year in 2015. In this College World Series alone, he earned a win on the mound against Texas A&M and homered to right field out of the cleanup spot Thursday night.

“(It was) just a treat to watch Brendan McKay play,” TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “And they have great other great players, too, but certainly we’ll look up in a couple of years or in 20 years and probably say it was awesome to be on the same field with one of the premier players ever to play college baseball.”

McKay, never one to outwardly express his emotions—positive or negative—maintained his stoic, even-keeled persona after Thursday’s game. He said that he was excited to hit a home run in Omaha but that individual achievement does little to wash away the pains of losing.

“For me personally,” McKay said, “it’s just another statistic.”

There are any number of statistics one could point toward to explain Thursday’s loss. Freshman starter Nick Bennett struggled, allowing four runs in 1.2 innings. Yet his bullpen allowed just four hits and no runs behind him. Louisville’s Nos. 2-5 hitters went a combined 3-for-15, yet the Cardinals found ways to chip away and move to within one run.

Even though McDonnell couldn’t watch his Cardinals—the team he had built and morphed into a national power—try to put together one last rally in the ninth, he remained positive. He knew they wouldn’t shy away from the pit they had entered.

“I did have a ray of hope, thinking you know what, you teach these guys how to lead, you teach these guys how to do it on their own, so there’s part of me that thought these guys are going to do it,” he said. “They’ll do it without me and it’ll show how much I trust them and believe in them.”

They didn’t get it done. But McDonnell wasn’t focused on that after the game. He wasn’t focused on the umpire’s ruling or any particular play or call or decision. He wasn’t focused on the result.

Courage isn’t about winning. It’s about stepping into the battle.

“It just shows you the resiliency they have and the talent they have,” McDonnell said of the way his players fought. “And as a lot of our pro guys are doing well in pro ball, these guys are going to do well. These guys are going to make a run and hopefully play this game for a long time. I was so proud of them. I believed in them.

“I always challenge these guys when they come into our program, try to leave it better than you found it. And that’s not easy for kids coming into our program.”

Results aside, heartbreak aside, when Hairston, McKay, Ellis and Henzman walked out of the TD Ameritrade Ballpark clubhouse for the last time Thursday—all together, consoling each other—there’s little doubt the Louisville locker room was made better just by them having been in it.

Together, they ran once more toward the roar.