The No. 1 UK baseball team features a balance of experienced upperclassmen and talented freshmen.

With 30 wins already on the season, those freshman contributors know little of last year’s 25-win, conference last-place team. So, for the who that experienced the difficulty of last season, Tuesday’s 12-0 home loss to No. 19 Louisville was taken with a grain of salt.

“You can look at it as a learning experience but I wouldn’t say it will help us going forward,” junior catcher Luke Maile said. “Nobody likes to lose. It was just one of those games. Hopefully we learn from a loss like this.”

The younger players seemed to take the big loss a bit tougher. The 12 runs and 17 hits were the most the Cats had allowed all season. Also, their four hits and zero runs were a season-low offensive output.

“You want to forget about it but at the same time you don’t,” freshman A.J. Reed, the starting pitcher against Louisville, said. “You want to remember what this felt like. But on the other hand, you don’t want to think about it anymore.”

A season-high crowd came out to see what was by far UK’s worst loss of the season. This was the Cats’ first home loss, and it stopped a program-record 21-game home win streak.

But now the focus turns forward to Arkansas. Ranked as high as No. 9 in one poll, the Razorbacks (24-8, 7-5 SEC) took two of three from Georgia last weekend to move to second place in the SEC West.

The No. 1-ranked Cats (30-4, 9-3 SEC) will have to refocus before Friday’s game if they want to continue their conference success and not take a big fall in the national rankings.

“It’s important for us to remember how this felt,” UK head coach Gary Henderson said. “We’ll have a couple good practices and show up in Fayetteville. Don’t worry about that.”