LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- One year ago, Louisville baseball was chasing something.
Respect. Relevance. Resurgence.
The 2025 season delivered all of it —  in dramatic fashion — as the Cardinals stormed to their sixth College World Series appearance and came within reach of a national title.
Now comes the harder part.
Owning it.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
"Last year was cool," junior outfielder Lucas Moore said. "Good season. Went to Omaha. All-American stuff. Yeah, it's cool. But I'd say it really doesn't matter now."
Dan McDonnell is entering his 20th season at Louisville. And after presiding over both a program reset and resurgence in the last two years, he's not loading up the theme-of-the-week speeches anymore. This year, the message is simple.
Own it.
"Last year, the team embraced the idea of 'championship reps,'" McDonnell said. "And we talked a lot about winning the day and sticking to the process. But this year they added, 'Own it.' You have to own it. And that's a combination of being accountable, the front of the room leading the back of the room. We all have to do our part. Do your job."
And that's where the 2026 story begins. Not with a clean slate. But with returning captains, returning innings and returning expectations, starting Friday at Jim Patterson Stadium, where No. 8 Louisville hosts Michigan State in the season opener.
The first pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. under 50-degree sunshine. It won't feel like Omaha weather. But it may feel like a season with Omaha stakes.
Speed never slumps
If there's one identity this Louisville team wore with pride last season, it was aggression on the basepaths. The Cardinals led the nation in stolen bases with 162. And the three biggest thieves are back:
- Lucas Moore: 53-54 (led all of Division I)
- Alex Alicea: 34 steals, third in the ACC
- Zion Rose: 31-34, while leading the team in RBIs
"We learned last year a very big part of how we play is playing fast," Moore said. "... The faster we play, the more aggressive we are, the more runs we score and the more games we win."
Louisville may have power. It certainly has depth. But what it always has — especially with Moore, Alicea and Rose at the top of the order — is motion.
Continuity is a weapon
There's nothing flashy about returning pitchers. But there's nothing more valuable.
Louisville brings back more than 60 percent of its total innings from last year, including standouts from its postseason run like Wyatt Danilowicz (2.70 ERA), Jake Schweitzer (2.34), Ethan Eberle, Peter Michael, and T.J. Schlageter.
That stability was a major reason for the Cards' deep run last June, when a regular-season team ERA of 5.67 dropped to a postseason 4.07, including 2.04 in Regionals and Supers.
And as last season showed, with pitchers shifting roles late in the year, McDonnell and pitching coach Roger Williams have a multitude of options within their staff.
"There's value in having that versatility," McDonnell said. "We just don't have the old school well, you're a starter and you throw seven innings and you're the closer. There's so much value in pitchers that can pitch out of the bullpen, can pitch with runners on, can be put in tough situations."
Danilowicz and Schweitzer were both named to the NCBWA Stopper of the Year preseason watch list. But Louisville's bullpen doesn't hang its hopes on a closer. It hangs them on adaptability, a trait forged during the long road back to Omaha.
And newcomers will have a say. Jake Bean, a righthander from Kent State, is expected to be in the mix.
A veteran core, with a freshman flash
Louisville returns four everyday starters from last season, including the entire top of its lineup — Rose, Moore, and Alicea — and slugger Tague Davis, who broke Chris Dominguez's freshman home run record with 18.
Each of those guys could fill this space by themselves.
What's new is the depth around them, particularly in the infield, where true freshman Kade Elam, Kentucky's 2025 Mr. Baseball out of Corbin, has quickly earned the trust of coaches and teammates alike.
"Kade is one of the best players I've ever seen," Alicea said.
Elam bypassed the MLB Draft to come to Louisville. He may or may not start Friday. But he'll play. And whether it's second base or elsewhere, Louisville views him as part of the core, not just the future.
"He didn't come in here with entitlement," McDonnell said. "It had nothing to do with his ranking in high school or what pro ball thought about him. It was, I think, from what he did Day One, when he got here, and his professionalism and how consistent he's been. Yeah, there's high level talent there. So, he's earned the right to play and be in the mix."
Motivated by routine, not rankings
This is a preseason top-10 team. A presumed national title contender. Two Golden Spikes preseason watch-list players — Rose and Moore — share space in the lineup.
But it's not a team driven by hype.
"I don't like to go off motivators," Rose said. "I like to stay in regiment, you know, routines and things like that. But that feeling of doing the CARDS chant with the crowd at the end of the Super Regional, or just the adrenaline before Game One in Omaha, those are definitely two things that, for me personally, are driving me this year, just to get back to that feeling."
Not because they're dreams. But because they're experiences, expectations, standards.
Another season, same mission
The Cards are 39-11 in NCAA postseason games played in Jim Patterson Stadium, including 16 different NCAA rounds in the past 18 seasons. They don't hope to play there in June. They expect to.
But for a team that knows both the pain of 2023 and the triumph of 2025, there's no shortcut back.
"Last year, you have to realize the eight teams in Omaha were not in Omaha the year before," McDonnell said. "To not have one returning team in Omaha's is a little bizarre, or maybe just surprising. So, as rosters change and chemistry changes, you're trying to make sure you have the right culture. The good thing about the core group of our players, because we know who we are. … Hopefully we're well in tune that just because you put this uniform on, and, 'Hey, we were in Omaha last year and we're all going to Omaha again.' No, there's a long road to get to Omaha."
It starts Friday, under February sun. No snow shovels necessary.
They're not chasing respect this time.
They're trying to own it.
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