Tuesday Cardinal Couple --Honorable pursuits

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

*************SCOREBOARD UPDATE****************

CARDS DEFEAT THE Ohio State University in Field Hockey 6-3. (more tomorrow)

• At 8-2, Louisville is off to its best start since 2005 when they went 9-2 to start the season.

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( CARDINAL COUPLE COLUMNIST AND RADIO STAR Jeff McAdams looks at various honors awarded the some of the performers in CARDINAL WOMEN'S SPORTS. WE think Jeff is deserving of a few awards as well...from now on, we'll refer to him with the title "A.P. Jeff". The A.P. stands for Always Perfect...not the world-wide news orgnization. Taking time out of his busy campaign schedule to become the next mayor of Crescent Hill...we bring you "A.P.'s" latest offerings.)  You can also catch him one a week with a column at Rivals.

 

Maya Collects Honors Again

Freshmen Volleyball hitter Maya McClendon collects her second straight Freshman of the Week honors from the AAC.  Get used to this, folks, I suspect you're going to be hearing this piece of news quite a bit over the next couple of months.

Sean Moth, PA announcer for most Cards Volleyball matches has apparently decided that Maya doesn't need a last name anymore and has taken to announcing some of her points as just, "Maya."  We can't say that we disagree.  Of course, anything that makes names easier to spell will go over well in my book...I'm looking at you, Field Hockey.

Caroline Young, of SMU, picked up Player of the Week honors again as well.  The conference press release about the honors really plays up that this is the first time in conference history that both the Freshman of the Week and Player of the Week honors were collected by the same players in consecutive weeks.  Only a little over a month into the season, in a conference so new you can still smell that new conference smell, that's not terribly surprising, but it is great to see Louisville Athletics leaving a mark on the conference.

Brooke Mattingly was also listed...again...on the Honor Roll.

Field Hockey Honors

The Louisville Field Hockey team is also holding a place in the weekly honors.  For Field Hockey,
though, things did get shaken up a bit.  Alyssa Voelmle snagged the Defensive Player of the Week honor.  Last week, Erin Schneidtmiller picked up the Offensive Player of the Week award.

The Sowry Squad moved up to #16 in last week's NFHCA coaches poll, though the NCAA doesn't seem to have the Sept. 24th poll up on their website.  They do have the Sept. 24th RPI update, which places Louisville in 25th.

Soccer Gets in on the Action

Louisville's freshman goalkeep, Paige Brown gets the nod for GoalKeeper of the Week on the strength of her fours saves in each of the Cards' two wins in their 2-0 start in conference play.

The NCAA also has the RPI out for Women's Soccer, with Louisville checking in at #42

Caitlin Welch Digging Totals

There was some discussion in the stands Sunday afternoon before the Temple match about the number of digs Caitlin Welch has.  We here at the Cardinal Couple are happy to give some well deserved respect to Liberos, so let's take a look at her numbers to this point.

Caitlin Welch reached the 1,000 dig mark in the first match of the 2012 season and finished the season last year with 1604 digs.  That tally, after only 3 seasons of play, puts Caitlin on top of the leaderboard for the Volleyball program at UofL by a margin of more than 100 digs.  She leads in this category ahead of Libero/DS luminaries such as current UofL Director of Volleyball Operations and former US National Team player Sarah Petkovic nee Drury (5th place with 1,205).  2nd place is held by Shannon Misek who played with the Cards between 1989 and 1992 and who tallied 1,482 digs.  3rd place, with 1,435 is occupied by Welch's predecessor, Lindsey Mango.

In this season, Caitlin has claimed 187 digs after 12 matches for a total of 1,791.  That's a pace of around 15 digs per match.  With 18 matches left in the season that puts her on pace to make it past the 2,000 dig mark by the end of the season.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We're probably never going to win any awards from the BIG EAST, AAC (or even the ASPCA) but we do have an little, interesting radio show that broadcasts from 11 a.m. till noon Saturday mornings on Crescent Hill Radio. You can here our broadcasts either live or on the SoundCloud. We think we had a good one last Saturday. You can hear it (and take the Quiz) at the link below:

WOMEN'S SPORTS REVIEW BY A FEW

Jeff McAdams