Tuesday Cardinal Couple - Another Look Back

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Worldwide Jeff McAdams catches us up on Mariya Moore making the USA U 18 squad and looks back at 2013 Field Hockey.)

 

USA Basketball U18 Team

Mariya Moore, who will be a freshmen on the UofL Women's Basketball team has been selected to the 2014 USA Basketball Women's U18 National Team after tryouts this weekend in Colorado Springs, CO.  The team will play in the 2014 FIBA Americas U18 Championship for Women, also in Colorado Springs, from August 6th-10th.  Eight teams from North, Central and South America will compete in the event, with the top four becoming eligible to play in the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship for Women next year.

The tryout roster for the U18 National Team consisted of 29 players, and the team roster is 12 players.  The head coach of the team is Dawn Staley, who is head coach at South Carolina and was previously at Temple, with assistants Kim Barnes Arico of Michigan and previously St. Johns and our very own Jeff Walz.

Obviously this is a great feather in Moore's cap, but it also gives her a framework to play at a higher level and get into better condition in preparation for playing at the college level.  It also will be nice for Moore and Coach Walz to work together some before arriving here at UofL to give them some added familiarity with each other.

Congratulations Mariya!

Headlining the USA squad is a trio of USA Basketball gold medalists, including Receé Caldwell (Homeschooled/San Antonio, Texas); Brianna Turner (Manvel H.S/Pearland, Texas) and A’ja Wilson (Heathwood Hall H.S./Hopkins, S.C.).

Joining their first USA Basketball team are: Ariel Atkins (Duncanville H.S./Duncanville, Texas); Napheesa Collier (Incarnate Word Academy/O’Fallon, Mo.); Paris Kea (Greensboro Page H.S./Greensboro, N.C.); Marina Mabrey (Manasquan H.S./Manasquan, N.J.); Teaira McCowan (Brenham H.S./Brenham, Texas); Beatrice Mompremier (Miami H.S./Miami, Fla.); Mariya Moore (Salesian H.S./Richmond, Calif.); Jessica Shepard (Fremont H.S./Fremont, Neb.); and Destinee Walker (Lake Highland Prep School/Ocoee, Fla.).

Another Look Back

Let's take a look back this week at the Field Hockey Season.

In just two seasons with the UofL Field Hockey team, Australian Justine Sowry has already put her mark on the program as Head Coach with a significantly increased level of competition.

Unfortunately, this season didn't achieve the successes that I'm sure Sowry aspires to, though it did feature a conference co-championship, one of 14 conference titles that that UofL teams won or shared this year (11 in The AAC and three in The Big East).  Because The AAC didn't sponsor Field Hockey in its conference, Field Hockey, like Lacrosse was still playing in The Big East Conference, but will join The ACC next year with all of the rest of UofL's sports.

Other positive notes include a 15th in the nation RPI at the end of the season as well as a 15th ranking in the last NFHCA Coaches Poll of the year.  Beware, though, that the same poll had all seven Field Hockey playing teams in The ACC (including Maryland who won't be in The ACC next year) ranked 13th or better.

The season started off on a sour note with a 3-2 loss to future conference-mate Virginia, but that was followed up by a 2-1 win over the Richmond Spiders (Best. Mascot. Ever.) just two days later as The Cards visited much of the state of Virginia.

The first chance to see the UofL Field Hockey team in person this year was the next weekend when The Cards got comfortable in Trager Stadium with two wins, 4-1 over William & Mary, and 6-2 over The Ohio Bobcats (I like to emphasize "The" when I refer to OU because it makes OSU folks angry).

On the road again, UofL picked up a 5-0 win over UC Davis playing at the University of Michigan, but the win streak came to a halt two days later with a hard fought 1-0 loss to the Blue and Maize.

Conference play started the next weekend with a rain-soaked and twice-lightning-delayed 3-2 overtime win over a Field Hockey powerhouse in Old Dominion.  ODU ended the season 6th ranked in the nation, and tied UofL and Connecticut for the regular season conference championship.  Also visiting Trager that weekend was Northeastern, which Louisville dispatched 2-1 in much more pleasant weather.

Back on the road, and back in conference play, UofL easily dispatched Georgetown 8-1 on a neutral field, but much closer to home for Georgetown, in College Park, MD.  Heading back west, they then dispatched Ohio State (See? No "The".) on their home turf in Columbus, OH.

Continuing the on-the-road/home-again pattern, as well as conference/non-conference switchups, but more importantly continuing the winning, UofL battled to their second overtime win of the year over Temple by a score of 2-1.  The non-conference opponent this weekend was near neighbor Indiana who were sent packing without any goals with a 3-0 Cardinals victory.

Back out on the road in a weekend that I'm sure Coach Sowry would love to have just gone on
walkabout, The Cards lost 6-0 to a very good UConn team, a team that would eventually end the year holding onto a national 4th ranking in the coaches poll.  Things didn't improve with a visit to Rhode Island, though this was a hard fought loss, with a score of 2-1 decided in the sudden-death overtime.

Back at Floyd Street things got better, though The Cards were still facing stiff competition and took two overtimes to battle off Rutgers 2-1.  A little bit easier later that weekend, Northwestern went back and started planning their revenge in Lacrosse when Louisville hung a 2-0 victory on the board.

A bit of a slow weekend just before Halloween with a quick trip to Philly and a relatively easy win over Villanova, 6-1.

While all of the scares are supposed to be over on Halloween, All Saints Day didn't want to let them go, with Providence pushing into the sudden-death overtime before UofL was able to get the 3-2 win.  Finally the regular season came to a close with a pretty easy 6-0 win over Kent State.  (Incidentally, Kent State, along with Kansas and Kentucky...so many "K"'s...are coming to Louisville this coming weekend for the Baseball regional tournament being hosted at Patterson Stadium here in Louisville)

Post season ambitions for the Field Hockey squad were stymied by a first round exit administered at the hands of the very good ODU squad that we discussed earlier.

With five losses, UofL found themselves on the outside looking in at the 19 (19?  Yes, really, 19.) team field in the NCAA tournament.  Perhaps some small consolation could be found in the National Championship being won by one of the teams that were able to prevail over The Cards, conference-mate UConn.

 OK, probably not very much consolation there.

The future looks bright for the Cards Field Hockey squad with 5 new players signed for the fall 2014 season, including twins from duPont Manual, Anna and Renee DuFour (The DuFours apparently capitalize the "D", duPont Manual High School does not).

Your correspondent is looking forward to seeing more Field Hockey games this fall and hopefully getting to know the game a bit better.  Admission at Trager Stadium is free, there's plenty of seating, and concessions are available.  Come out and catch a few games, its a lot of fun to watch and I do believe we have another team on an upward trajectory, here.


LYNX WIN VS. CHICAGO

Our Asia Taylor saw minutes off the bench in the 75-72 Minnesota win over Chicago on Monday. Her stat line:

BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-	PTS
Asia Taylor, F	11	0-3	0-0	2-2	2	1	3	1	0	0	1	2	+1	2

jmca
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