Volleyball and Soccer - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball

Volleyball hosted their annual Red and Black scrimmage at the newly renovated Cardinal Arena which will be home to all of the UofL home matches this year.  The renewed facility looks great, apparently seats approximately 1200, and the seats and access are all more comfortable and easier to manage.

Though the event is titled the Red and Black Scrimmage, they actually played Red vs White.  The white team consisted of what I expect to be the starting line-up, while the red team competed very well (25-20, 25-23, 25-21) to give them some competition.

There are no official box scores for this exhibition match, but Associate SID for Volleyball, Nancy Worley did share a couple of stats in her post-match write-up.  Tess Clark, now swinging away on the outside, had 17 kills, and Amanda Green, the transfer that joined the team in January, had 14.  Both were playing for the white team.

In more subjective observations, Wilma Rivera, a junior transfer from Penn State, showed quite well what she is made of.  Another lefty, Rivera will join fellow southpaw Gabbie Wiley in creating a threat for UofL from the service line.  At 5'10" she has the height to be able to effectively block, and is just generally one of the most athletic setters I've seen in a long time.  In a couple of plays she did what I guess would technically would be considered a setter dump, but by putting a little bit of loft on the hit, she aimed for the very back corner of the opponent's court.  Both were targeted wonderfully, one was reached by the defense, but the other dropped in for the point about a foot away from both the sideline and the backline.  The precision of the targeting of the shots was impressive.  I think Cardinal fans are going to be impressed by this Puerto Rican.

I think it's clear, if you've read Cardinal Couple for the past couple of years that I'm a fan of Molly Sauer, and she continues to quietly, without drawing a lot of attention to herself, make this whole team better.  Alexis Hamilton, also in defense, showed that the recruiting praise was deserved.

Kali Eaken showed that she will be ready to go to fill in for Wilma on a moment's notice.  She lacks a little bit of Rivera's athleticism, but she is a good setter, so we're in good shape in that position.  Alexia Byrnes, a freshman setter, also got some reps at the position.  Piper Roe, after a minor ankle turn to Maggie DeJong early in the match switched from Red to White and played well, she will be called on to fill in when either Maggie or Jasmine Bennett are unable to play.  On the red side, Coline Coessens had some good swings, and Megan Sloan has shown, in addition to sporting a sleaker, slimmer, and more toned frame, the improvement in her game.  In defense, Natalie Palastro and Akela Yuhl, both freshmen, held their own, and with a little bit of an assist from a quite good practice player, and assistant coaches Dan Meske and Kolby O'Donnell really did a fine job providing good competition for the white team.

I did get some audio from after the Red and Black Scrimmage from Coach Busboom Kelly, and will be working to get it posted where it can be listened to soon.

All in all, I'm excited for the season to get underway.  It will do so Friday in Madison WI at the ACC/Big 10 Challenge.  UofL will be playing host Wisconsin who is finally without their stellar, she-finally-graduated, setter Lauren Carlini.  That match is Friday at 7:30 if you're in Madison, 8:30 for us Eastern Time folk.  Saturday they'll be playing Minnesota at 4 Central, 5 Eastern.  There is no TV or video streaming listed.  There is a radio link for the Saturday match on an IHeartRadio channel.  It'll be on 100.9FM in Madison, a frequency that is near and dear to our hearts here at Cardinal Couple as that's also the frequency that Crescent Hill Radio, our hosts for The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour, broadcasts on here in Louisville.

Soccer

Men's Soccer wrapped up their exhibition play last night with some very late game heroics to salvage the draw.

Watterson "Freeway" Young scored for the Cards in the 90th minute, to tie up the game at 1-1 vs the Oakland Bears.

They will be opening their official season this Friday at Lynn Stadium vs UC Irvine, The Anteaters...what a fantastic mascot!

 The game will start at 7:30 and should be a great way to spend a Friday evening...although we doubt UC Irvine brings the anteater with them.



Field Hockey

The Field Hockey team faced the Alums yesterday and it was one sided...as you might expect. No official stats were kept for the contest...but it was 11-0 undergrads over the grads. 33 showed up to play (or watch) for the alums and it was good to see them back out applying their skills.

4-0 at the half and the scoring onslaught really didn't get underway until the latter part of the final half...when the alums were getting a bit tired and substituting a few "veteran" players. Still, an aggressive effort by Justine Sowry's current squad.

I do know Taylor Stone had a few scores, so did Minnie Mink, Madison Walsh and Marigrace Ragsdale.

The highlight of the day was when a random person off the street walked through the middle of the field just as the game was ready to start and the alumni lined up to attack. She walked over to the UofL bench...exited and then came back across the field later as action was underway...racross the middle of the field again. With no "Yellow Shirts" present...she was unencumbered on her "stroll" but the police were called and she was eventually escorted out of Trager Stadium by University staffers.

Weird. Maybe she wanted to play....

JUSTINE SOWRY DISCUSSES ALUMNI GAME

Radio

Speaking of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour, the latest show is available at the usual location in the SoundCloud.  We were graced with the presence of Daryl Faust in studio.  Paulie let her know that her co-hort in Daryl-dom, Daryl Bell, on the Women's Soccer team, is expected to be out for the season with a knee injury.  It was a fun show, and Daryl really classes the place up over us knuckleheads, so do check it out.

There's audio from Field Hockey and Women's Soccer during the show and Worldwide successfully defended his title as "king of the quizzes"...although Daryl did manage a tie with him. The alleged protest  on one of the answers was over-ruled by Paulie in a psuedo-tense moment of airtime. Prima donnas...they're everywhere.

-- JMcA