Dan McDonnell Preaching Focus Amid Start of 'Revenge Tour'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville baseball program certainly wasn't lacking any motivation heading into the 2022 season.

A usual mainstay of the NCAA Tournament, the Cardinals were coming off of a 2021 campaign in which they found themselves on the outside looking in after a brutal final month of the season. It was only the second time ever that Louisville had missed the Big Dance under head coach Dan McDonnell.

Couple that with an unusually quiet preseason for the program, in which the Cardinals garnered no preseason accolades - or even a top 25 ranking - and a chip on the team's collective shoulders started to form. Outfielder Cam Masterman even went as far to call their 2022 season the "revenge tour" during media day.

Well, the tour didn't exactly get off to a great start. Louisville was able to to claim their season opener against Charlotte, but then fell behind big early vs. USF for their first loss, and then narrowly avoided getting shutout against UConn. Over their entire opening weekend down in Tampa, Fla., Louisville allowed 26 runs, hit 6-25 with runners in scoring position, and had ten errors - with five in the game against UConn alone.

This was no accident. McDonnell noticed that the team wasn't playing free and loose at all, and almost looked like they were carrying the burden of last year's squad that missed the postseason. They were actually too emotional.

"I think it sounds great, but baseball is too tough a game," McDonnell said. "You're gonna squeeze the bat a little harder, you're gonna try to throw try a little harder. You're gonna get too amped up. This is not football. I love football, but this is not a football. I'm emotional as it is. and I try to get guys fired up enough. The last thing they need to do is get more fired up trying to make up for some hiccups last year."

He noted that once the team fell behind big in their Sunday game against UConn, that it "felt like the world was on our shoulders." Heading back home to Louisville and into their home opener this past Monday against Xavier, his message was that he not only wanted to not play so tight, but that they needed to "unpack the backpack."

"The message to the guys (Sunday night) was, we can't make up for last year," McDonnell said. "We can't carry that around with you. It looked like this weekend, we were."

It's early, but it seems like the team has responded well to that message.

In their home opener against the Musketeers, Louisville found themselves trailing 4-1 heading into the seventh inning, with the momentum squarely in favor of Xavier. That is when this young and relatively inexperienced team showed their first real sign of growth in maturity.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Cardinals put up a six-spot to flip a three-run deficit into a three-run advantage. The pitching staff did allow a pair of runs in the top of the eighth to let Xavier pull within one, but they eventually found a way to shut the door on the Musketeers for a 7-6 win.

"That's something that this group really needed, to just have that confidence," Masterman said, who capped off the seventh inning with a mammoth 456-foot home run. "Like Coach Mac said in the middle innings, just know that we have that fight in us."

Now, Louisville is preparing for a weekend series against Dartmouth starting this Friday. It's part of a stretch of 18-straight home games at Jim Patterson Stadium, and the message to his team is the same as it was heading into the Xavier game: be where your feet are.

"I was worried about them carrying the past around with them, the last thing I need them do is worrying about tomorrow. Let's just compete, and live in the moment," McDonnell said.

(Photo of Dan McDonnell: Steven Branscombe - USA TODAY Sports)

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