Jayhawks next...Lacrosse players honored -- Tuesday Cardinal Couple

Let's Look at Kansas Softball

As Paulie mentioned yesterday, UofL Softball surprised a number of us by getting a bid to the NCAA.  Probably more shocking is that the ACC got 7 teams in the tournament, with Notre Dame...only one game ahead of us in conference play, four games overall...getting the 16th seed and a Regional hosting opportunity. 

Truly, I still don't get it.

But let's take a look at our opponent for Friday.  The Kansas Jayhawks.  Normally I would say their win over Arkansas would count as a signature win, but the Razorbacks seem to have fallen on hard times, compared to their past powerhouse years, having not even received an at-large bid to the tournament. 

The Kansas non-conference slate was rather underwhelming with a highlight in at-the-time-ranked-number-one Florida that resulted in a 1-7 loss.  The Big-12 does have some good softball teams.  A win over Oklahoma, the 11 seed in the tournament carries some weight, though they did lose the other two games in the series to the Sooners. 

Unfortunately for the Jayhawks, that's about the only good win I see on their schedule.  A series sweep at the hands of a decent Texas team is not anything to be really ashamed of.  Despite Texas Tech not making the tournament, they have traditionally been a good team, so a couple of losses there probably doesn't sting too badly either.  And as Paulie mentioned yesterday, coming into the tournament off a series sweep of Iowa State certainly doesn't hurt in the momentum department.

As far as teams that both the Cardinals and Jayhawks have both faced, we don't get a lot of separation here either.

Kansas swatted Georgia Tech in their non-conference meeting, and we swept the series.  Illinois State got two attempts at both of us with remarkably similar scores.  Both of us took down the other redbirds with a 10-2 run-rule in 5 innings, but The Jayhawks came out on top 4-2 in the other meeting, where we came out on the wrong side of our 4-3 meeting, though it did take 8 innings for that result. 

We both picked up wins over the aforementioned Arkansas Razorbacks, the Jayhawks squeaked a 4-3 win, while we hung an 11-5 win on them.  UMKC dropped games against each of us, 5-2 vs Kansas, and 3-2 against us.

The NCAA Softball tournament basically consists for double-elimination tournaments at each Regional location, the winner advancing to a best of three series with an opponent at a Super-Regional (which, if you think of it is a double-elimination for a 2 team tournament), with the winners of that going on to the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.

The WCWS is structured essentially as two parallel double-elimination tournaments, but with some of the losses kicking the teams across to the other bracket.  The winners that emerge from the two brackets then play a best of three series for the championship.  It's an unusual overall tournament format, but I've grown to really enjoy it over the past few years.

Louisville starts play on Friday, the 15th at 5pm (EDT).

Lacrosse Honors

Four Louisville Lacrosse players were named to the All-West Region teams, which makes them eligible for All-American honors that will be announced on Monday the 18th.

Kaylin Morissette, was an All-American last year, and looks to be headed that way again in her Junior year with this first team selection.

Faye Brust, perhaps partly due to missing five games with a knee injury, was named to the second team, which makes it a bit more of a challenge for her to repeat as an All-American.

Co-Captain Cortnee Daley also earned the second team nod, and sophomore Hannah Koloski join Brust on the second team.

JMcA