For a week, Louisville’s surprising baseball team has been the talk of the town, drawing record crowds at Jim Patterson Stadium for its first two games against NCAA Super Regional foe Oklahoma State.
On Sunday, the Cards and Cowboys will move to the national center stage for the deciding game of their best-of-three series. The first pitch is slated for 4 p.m., and the game will be aired on ESPN. A limited number of reserved seats and standing room tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium ticket office. Any unsold tickets will then be available at Jim Patterson Stadium. In all, 8,161 fans have seen the first two contests, and another record crowd is expected for the finale.
After defeating OSU 9-0 on Friday, the Cards led the Cowboys 2-1 in the ninth inning of Saturday’s clash and were just three outs from victory and a trip to the College World Series. 
Instead, star U of L relief pitcher Trystan Magnuson (photo at left) gave up a line drive solo home run to left by Ty Wright that tied the score. It was just the second hit of the game for the Cowboys. The other had come in the fourth as OSU’s Corey Brown belted a pitch over the centerfield wall. That was the only hit of the day allowed by starter Justin Marks who gave way to Kyle Hollander in the seventh. Magnuson took over in the eighth and continued the rest of the way through the 12th. It was his 35th appearance for the Cards (45-22), a school record.
Oklahoma State went ahead for good on a RBI single by Keanon Simon in the top of the 12th inning.
“Trystan is probably done for Sunday,” said U of L head coach Dan McDonnell. “We have about three guys we can start in the third game (junior righthanders James Belanger, and Colby Wark and senior lefty Skylar Meade). We just have to have confidence in ourselves, go out there and play.”
Louisville took the lead in the sixth inning of the second game when designated hitter Jorge Castillo drilled a double into the right field corner that scored both Daniel Burton and Isaiah Howes. Overall, U of L out-hit OSU 8-4, but two of the Cowboys’ hits were homers.
NOTEBOOK: In the NCAA track and field championships in Sacramento, Calif., U of L’s Andre Black finished second in the triple jump (52-02.50), earning All-American honors and leading the Cards to a tie for seventh-place, the best ever for a Louisville team. The previous best was last year’s 30th place performance. Florida State won the team title with 54 points, following by LSU (48), Auburn (34), Tennessee (31), USC (27, North Carolina (26) and Louisville and Wisconsin (22).
NOTE: Daily columnist Ron Steiner also appears on the Red & Blue Review, a weekly statewide TV sports show (Insight Ch. 2), is published weekly in the Voice-Tribune and is a guest each Friday (5:45 p.m.) on the Cardinal Insider radio program (KRDS, 790AM). He can be reached by e-mail at r.steiner@insightbb.com.
