4 12 2011 JR G Becky Burke Supporting Louisville Baseball...Softball splits

CD/CC Photo 4 12 2011 JR G Becky Burke

THURSDAY @ CARDINAL COUPLE

-Cards split against Softball Huskies

-Tennis Travels to Texas

-Packed weekend in Louisville

-Bria Smith update


LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Stellar Lady Cards guard Becky Burke was out in full-force to support Louisville baseball at the UofL - UK Baseball Rivalry Game Tuesday night at Jim Patterson Stadium.

She had her hands full of grub and I asked for a photo. Burke replied, "With my hot dog and all?" jokingly, so I assured Becky that I would just take a face shot.........:-)

Every time I have seen Becky in person out supporting Louisville athletic programs other than women's basketball, she is always smiling and joking with a GREAT disposition.

Give it up for the great Becky Burke!

(Thanks to Shannon Ruffra, the CARDINAL DOMINANCE managing editor/owner and CARDINAL COUPLE contributing writer for the photo and write-up. You can follow this excellent website daily at http://www.cardinaldominance.net/ ) or just click on it over on the left side of our site.)

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The University of Louisville softball team split yesterday's doubleheader at Ulmer Stadium with the Connecticut Huskies 2-1, 1-5. For Louisville, it was a case of strong pitching but not enough batting.
Freshman sensation Caralisa Connell struck out 20 Huskies on the day while pitching all 14 innings for the Cards. Her 14 K's in the first game were a career high for her.

Louisville 2 - Connecticut 1. The Cards moved early in the first game, tacking a run on the scoreboard in the first inning when Chelsea Bemis doubled home Jennifer Esteban to give the Cards a 1-0 advantage. UConn came back to tie it in the second with a solo home run shot by Kim Silva. The contest evolved into a pitcher's duel after that....Louisville pushing the game winning run across the plate in the bottom of the seventh when Taner Fowler advanced to second on a UConn error, was replaced on the base paths by Chelsea Jordan...who moved to third on a Hannah Kiyohara single. Esteban singled to score Jordan for the winning run. Connell allowed but five hits in the win and struck out 14.

Connecticut 5 - Louisville 1. UConn was held by Louisville to three scoreless innings to start the second game. The Cards started the contest with a run in the bottom of the first when Katie Keller singled, stole second and scored on a UConn fielding error In the top of the fourth, the Huskies struck for four runs on four hits to grab a 4-1 lead. The Cards could not solve Kiki Saveriano's pitching the rest of the way and the Huskies added an insurance run in the top of the seventh for the final 5-1 victory. Connell allowed four runs on five hits and fanned six Huskies batters in the loss...breaking her and the Cards 12 game win streak.

Sandy Pearsall was to the point after the double header:

"Connecticut came to play today and did a great job of keeping us off balance. We didn't do a lot of things well today...didn't create much offense and we made mistakes defensively. The only bright side was Caralisa..who shows up every day and pitches a great game."

Louisville (31-11) returns to action this weekend with a three game series in South Bend against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

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Women's Tennis (11-9) spends the weekend in Texas to close the regular season with matches against Houston and Rice. The Cards enter the BIG EAST Tournament beginning April 28th. Both the men's and women's teams will compete for the BIG EAST title in South Bend, IN.

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The weekend ahead is going to be a busy one here in Louisville. The football Cards play their Spring Game in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium on Friday night at 7 p.m. Louisville lacrosse has a 5 p.m. match at Louisville Lacrosse Stadium that afternoon. The lacrosse stadium is right down Floyd Street from PJCS. The weather is the joker in this deck...with a 60% chance of rain forecast for Friday. Then on Saturday, Louisville kicks off the Derby Festival celebrations with Thunder over Louisville down on the banks of the Ohio River. The river is close to flood stage because of recent rains and there is a 40% chance of more rain on Saturday.
Let's hope "mother nature" gives us a break...we've haven't had good weather for a Spring football game in several years now...and Thunder in the rain is never fun.

It's also a big weekend of racing up at Lexington's Keeneland Race Course. The Grade I Blue Grass stakes is Saturday and we could see a couple of Kentucky Derby contenders stamp their tickets for the First Saturday in May with impressive runs in the mile and one eighth contest of the polytrack. Santiva, Wilkinson and King Congie are three that might earn that trip to Churchill Downs with big performances. CARDINAL COUPLE has tenative plans to take in a day at Keeneland and then head back to the Ville for Thunder on Saturday. Let's hope the weather co-operates...

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Bria Smith, undeclared 5'9" guard from Christ the King, will visit both Louisville and Tennessee next week. There are also rumors out there that she'll be checking out Rutgers also on an official visit. Smith has tweeted that she'll probably make a decision after the USA Basketball tryouts. Don't expect to see any ACC schools beside Virginia loom as potential visits...she'd have to sit out a year, since she received a release from Virginia. Sorry, Duke and UNC.

Smith has been fairly non-committal on who is leading the race for her services. One can surmise that the reason for that is that she may not know yet herself. Smith is interested in majoring in communication and wants to pursue a career in television after graduating from college. Maybe someone could create a reality show about her...
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