Volleyball Wins the Weekend -- Radio...SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Double The Winning

Seton Hall

Volleyball won the Active Ankle Challenge contested at Cardinal Arena, by winning all three of their matches, defeating Utah, Seton Hall, and Ohio University.

Yesterday's action started with Louisville vs Seton Hall. The Pirates didn't really provide a great deal of threat to the Cardinals, with the Kordes Krew winning the match in three straight sets (25-16, 25-10, 25-21). While Louisville hasn't been a particularly strong blocking team in recent years, this match was highlighted by 16 team blocks, led by Maya McClendon's seven.

Louisville's hitting percentage wasn't stellar, at .278, but it was certainly better than Seton Hall's .036. Quite a few service errors from the Cards in this one, at nine, but in a conversation with Coach Anne Kordes after the Utah match, she stated that she wasn't worried about the service errors this weekend because they were trying to be very aggressive in their serving.


The usual attacking by committee got the jobs done, with Erin Fairs getting 12, and McClendon joining her in double digits with 10. Tess Clark and Janelle Jenkins both claimed eight, with Maggie DeJong chalking up four by her name in the stats sheet.

I thought, despite the good stats numbers that the team felt a little lethargic in this one. Perhaps it was the 10am start time combined with a bit smaller than normal crowd, but they did get the job done and were able to take the afternoon for rest and recovery before matching up against the Ohio Bobcats.

Ohio

In the wrap-up for the weekend tournament, The Cards took on the strongest challenge of the weekend. A standing room only crowd on hand for the nightcap with 902 in 840-seat Cardinal Arena, was a great way to cap off the weekend of volleyball.

After the early match between Seton Hall and Utah went a full five sets, with Utah finally gaining the victory, the nightcap between Ohio and UofL didn't get started until after 8pm.

The fans certainly got their money's worth in this ticket, with the Cards and Bobcats also taking a full five sets to decide the outcome. UofL eventually got the job done, 25-19, 25-27, 23-25, 25-22, 15-9.

Ohio played a very scrappy game, with excellent defense which clearly had The Cards very flustered and frustrated in the middle sets. An overall hitting percentage for Louisville of only .228 is owed more towards The Bobcats amazing digging and defensive play. The big number for this game was Tess Clark's mind-blowing .760 hitting percentage. That's an error-free 19 kills on 25 attempts.

Again, the offense was by committee with Erin Fairs leading the way with 22 kills, Tess Clark's 19 put her in second, Maya McClendon tallied 13, Janelle Jenkins swung for 12, and Maggie DeJong got to double-digits with 10 and a very respectable .316 percentage.

Molley Sauer continues to be the heart and soul of the defense, with 30 digs, with Janelle Jenkins and Katie George joining her in double digit digs with 13 and 12, respectively. 11 service errors is still a little worrisome, but in a five set match with a very aggressive service plan, it's nothing to lose sleep over.

It was a good match to learn about good blocking, with both teams tallying 10. Perhaps that was appropriate, with Lecia Brown, one of the best blockers in Louisville history, being in attendance.

The Cards will be back in action Thursday evening in Cincinnati, taking on the Bearcats at 6pm. I'm just glad Cincinnati changed their apparel contract to Under Armor. With both UofL and UC using the same school colors, and previously both being Adidas schools, distinguishing the players in their nearly identical warmups used to be almost impossible.


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JMcA