Volleyball and Field Hockey...SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Blocks Syracuse

In a Friday night matchup filled with familiar faces, Syracuse got the lion's share of the blocks, but Louisville came away with the victory in four sets (25-12, 22-25, 25-16, 25-18). The evening honored former members of the UofL program from alumnae players,

Syracuse, coached by former Louisville skipper Leonid Yelin, came in prepared to put a lot of blocks at the net...and they did, winning the blocking category 13-7.5 (in volleyball stats, if three players go up for a block, they each get credited with "half" of a block meaning the total can come out with some number "and a half", which is weird, but it's the way it work in Volleyball). But a game isn't decided with just blocking, and UofL did lot's of other things right to come away with the win.

Notably, The Cards were able to run a really quick offense and get the ball to the hitters before The 'Cuse could get their blocks up in place. With a defense completely designed around good blocking, the rest of the defense was easy pickings for The Cards offense committee.

The match started out with some ugly early service errors by the Cards, but once the early match jitters and the worst of the service errors were over, the Cards settled in ran the score out to a relatively easy win. In a rough second set, with some sloppy passing slowing down the pace of the offense, Syracuse was able to get their blocking engaged and stop the Louisville attack.

After the set break, UofL got their passing back on target and was able to get the offensive pace back up to the speed they wanted. Once they got back to beating out the blocks, they got a couple of relatively easy wins to close out the match.

Erin Fairs tallied the most kills with 16 on 35 swings, for an acceptable .229 percentage. Joining her in double-digit kills was Janelle Jenkins with 12 on 40 tries, for .200, which is relatively error free hitting. Tess Clark also got a dozen on 20 attempts, and with only three miscues, that gives her a whopping .450 percentage. The other side of our middle power duo showed what efficiency is like as well, with eight out of 15 for Maggie DeJong for .400.


We did see the return of Maya McClendon to the floor, after not seeing any playing time in the past two matches. Her role was limited, but she did get a few swings out of the back row for a very efficient .400 on a, notably mistake free, 5 attempts. Molly Sauer continues to patrol the back row with a level of play beyond what is normally expected from a freshman, getting 29 digs, and claiming two service aces.

This one was streamed on ESPN3, so if you missed it, you can go catch an on-demand replay. The VolleyCards will be back in action Sunday against Boston College.

Duke Rains on Field Hockey's Day

Field Hockey headed southeast to play against Duke on Tobacco Road. The dominant player may have been Hurricane Joaquin, soaking the playing field. The rains may have given the UofL squad some challenges, as Duke got an early goal and kept that lead into halftime.

The Cards held a 3-1 advantage on penalty corners, but this is a Louisville squad that has not been able to capitalize on penalty corners very well all year resulting in a 5-3 shot advantage for Duke at halftime.

The same basic pattern continued in the second half, with Duke getting the only score, and outshooting the Cards 6-4, but UofL getting more penalty corners 5-3.

UofL takes the loss against another former coach in Pam Bustin, and returns to play Sunday against UMass.

RADIO TODAY

The CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR airs today at 11 a.m. on WCHQ 100.9 FM locally and streaming live on the Internet at www.crescenthillradio.com

We have a great show planned for you today with recaps and discussions on volleyball, field hockey and soccer. We'll also put out the Worldwide Quiz for you and we invite you to see if you can beat my steamed colleague. 

jmca