Monday, October 1, 2018

Vball Grinds Out Victory -- Lax and Softball Fall Schedule -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Grinds It Out In Victory


Volleyball reps their ACC Championship rings
Louisville volleyball survived 20 service errors as they held off Clemson on a five-set nail-biter.  The victory keeps the Cards undefeated in the ACC at 4-0.  Overall, Louisville sits at 11-4.

The Cards claimed the first set 25-21.  They didn't look great- 16 kills and eight errors- but Clemson struggled and hit .036.

Things flipped in the second set with Clemson winning 25-21.  The Tigers powered their way through the set hitting .611 while Louisville's errors continued.

Coming out of halftime Louisville earned a solid victory in the third set 25-18.  UofL held their errors to just two and hit .385.  Clemson hit .172.


The Cards made an appearance at the Kentucky State Fair
The struggles returned in the fourth set for Louisville.  Clemson claimed the set 25-23.  Despite 11 kills against seven errors the Cards only lost by two points.  Clemson's attack percentage was near-par with the fourth set at .171.

The Cards battled it out and fought through a loud Clemson atmosphere to claim the fifth set 16-14 and walked away with a win.  Their attack percentage of .429 was their best of the day by far and had a match-low of two errors.  Clemson had one more kill than errors in the fifth set as they were limited to a .062 percentage.

Overall on the match Louisville hit .259.  Their 64 kills was way ahead of Clemson's 52, who capitalized on 25 errors by the Cards, 20 of them off the serve.  Louisville also won the ace battle 7-4.

Amanda Green, Melanie McHenry, and Megan Sloan were all boom-boom-boom in kills at 17, 16, and 15.  Wilma Rivera dished out 54 of Louisville's 60 assists and added four blocks.


Redshirt junior Amanda Green
The back row was quiet with Molly Sauer tallying nine digs and Green recording 10.  Both defenses let the opposing offense do most of the damage with a combined 53 errors to go against 116 kills, a poor ratio.

Louisville now comes home for a four-game home stand.  Last year Louisville was undefeated at home in conference play and hopes to do the same this year.  Duke visits Cardinal Arena on Friday night at 5:00 p.m.  Please note the early start time to help accommodate with the Friday night football game at 7:00 p.m.


Lacrosse Sweeps Marquette and Butler


Senior Tessa Chad will captain the offense
Louisville hosted Marquette and Butler for a round robin event yesterday starting in the morning.  The Cards defeated both teams in a promising sign for the spring.

UofL battled it out with Marquette for most of the game before scoring the final five goals to win 16-11.  Nine players scored with Tessa Chad leading the charge with four goals.  Caroline Blalock and Ally Hall each pulled off a hat trick.

In their second game, Louisville blew out Butler 22-12. The Cards raced out to a 9-0 lead in about 14 minutes and then led 22-11 late in the game.  Chad was one goal shy of a triple hat trick (is that a thing?) scoring a game-high eight goals.  Hall and both Blalock sisters (Caroline and Sarah) recorded hat tricks.  Seven players scored on the game.


Caroline Blalock led the team in goals scored in 2018
One of the main factor behind Louisville's dominance on the day was their success on draw controls.  The Cards were lackluster in that category last year and it's apparent the coaching staff behind Scott Teeter and Kay Morissette have addressed that issue.

Defensively, there are a few collapses as players continue to adjust to the new system and they could have trouble against offensive juggernauts.  On the offensive side it appears Louisville has three or four players that can almost score at will, which will come in handy when conference play rolls around.


Softball Splits Series With Indiana


Softball makes a visit to King's Island
Another team in the midst of their fall schedule is softball.  It has been quite some time since softball played D1 opponents in the fall semester, but Holly Aprile wants to get a feel for her team.  The Cards made the trip to Bloomington where they won in the 2018 regular seaosn.

By coincidence, both games ended with a 9-1 result, Louisville taking the first game and Indiana taking the latter of the two.

Other than Twitter we do not know much about the games.


Can you name this roller coaster?
Megan Hensley finished the first game with multiple hits and several RBI's, including a single, two doubles and a home run.  Danielle Watson pitched three innings and allowed one run.  Kyra Snyder entered in the fourth and allowed no runs.  Sidney Melton and Caitlin Ferguson also had solid games at the plate.

Hensley took the circle for the second game.  Her defense had trouble supporting her as multiple errors gave the Hoosiers an early lead.  A pair of home runs and a soft defense helped blow the game open for the hosts and Louisville was not able to rally.  Blaire Bass made a heads up play on the base path, finding her way to third, and scored on a fielder's choice for Louisville's only run of the game.

The usual players in Hensley, Sidney Melton, and Celene Funke appear to be leaders on the team this year.  Maddy Newman had a big freshman year and looks to continue that into her sophomore season.  Other players to keep an eye on include redshirt-freshman Taylor Roby and freshman Charley Butler.

As of right now the biggest questions softball faces are who will fill in positions at catcher, first base, and third base.

Other News and Notes

WBB flashes their rings at the football game
Have you seen the new bling for women's basketball?  The Final Four rings are in!

The UofL women's basketball team had a busy few days with an appearance at Louisville Live Friday night and at the end of the first quarter at the UofL vs. FSU Football game -- where they were introduced to a very appreciative crowd and displayed those rings.

Even though we didn't get a picture of it, we're fairly certain Jaz Jones did some dancing...as Paulie mentioned during The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour on Saturday, Jaz could probably find room to dance in a closet. Is Dancing With The Stars or America's Got Talent in her future?

There are no women's sports with events for a couple of days but you can be assured all are practicing in preparation for what comes next.

We have reached the start of the final quarter of the year, meaning many fall sports have reached or surpassed the halfway point of the season.  ACC play is in full swing for most of the sports.

Happy Monday and Go Cards!

- Jared -

8 comments:

  1. Good Morning Cardinal Couple!

    Arthur here:

    The wife and I, plus a couple of neighbors decided to drive to campus Sunday to watch Clemson Volleyball against the Cardinals. We had a great time in the five games and I even caught a t-shirt tossed to me. There was, what I am guessing, a very large crowd for Clemson Volleyball in Jervey Gym.

    I'm no volleyball expert, first off. but it looked like the teams were very evenly matched in this one. A couple of things did stand out to me and the others on the afternoon.

    Louisville was having a lot of trouble with their serving. It's part of what kept Clemson in the contests.

    Alyssa Deloney had a SportsCenter moment when she basically bicycle-kicked the ball over the net to keep it in play. I, for one, did not know that you could use your feet in Volleyball to keep a ball alive. It was a scrambling attempt to return and her kick counted as the third hit, I guess you call it, in a point Clemson eventually won.

    The fifth game was a thriller, Deloney had a kill to tie it at 14-14 before the Cards got the final two points to take the game and the match. I was impressed with your #10 -- McHenry, I think?

    What a nail-biting weekend. The Football Tigers barely escape against Syracuse and Volleyball narrowly loses to Louisville.

    I did see the high-lights of the Louisville vs. FSU football game and I can imagine the frustration there.

    Also, I did listen to the rebroadcast archive of the Cardinal Couple radio show and thank you boys for the shout-out! You know I'm in your corner unless it is a Clemson vs. Louisville match-up.

    We did meet a couple of Louisville fans at the volleyball match, one who has heard your radio show and reads your site. A guy named Ron from Louisville. Don't know if he had a daughter on the team or not. We just exchanged a few thoughts out in the parking lot after the games.

    Your friend
    #1 Clemson Fan
    Arthur
    Greer, SC

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  2. Thanks for checking in Arthur! Sounds like you had a good time. I didn't see much of the Volleyball match but kudos to Jared for a great write up and your comments. We're still undefeated in the ACC.

    Not sure who you ran into at Volleyball. There are three players on the Volleyball roster but I don't think any of them have a dad named Ron. Pretty sure it wasn't Ron Kordes....father of ex-UofL Volleyball coach Anne Kordes. Maybe it was ex-football coach Ron Cooper? He had a couple of daughters into volleybal. (LOL on that one.)

    Paulie

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  3. Almost didn't comment today. Still too frustrated to comment much on Football. I was there and left at the end feeling like someone had just punched me hard in the stomach. Enough of that.

    Wow on WSOC. That's a bad beat. Hopefully they can recover in time for Virginia. Congrats to Volleyball for winning on the road and Field Hockey as well. A special 'WTG' to Dorcas Waskie -- Cross Country. Her story on getting to UofL is amazing and she's really carrying the torch.

    Hey, Arthur! I have a couple of uncles in Beaufort, SC. Not sure how far that is from Greer but I try to get down and see them once/twice a year. Planning on going to Clemson game and combine a trip to see them also, so let's hook up and you can show me how great Clemson tailgating is from a home fan's perspective?

    Curtis "There is no "I" in Football, but there is in "Petrino" Franklin

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    Replies
    1. Hey, Curtis. Arthur here:

      Beaufort is about 4 hours south east of us down I-26. Greer is up in the northwest part of South Carolina, not too far from Asheville, NC. We're about an hour away from Clemson.

      But, I'll show you a huge time if you want to tailgate with us for the Louisville vs. Clemson game. November 3rd.

      Paulie, would you be kind enough to get Curtis my e-mail or phone #?

      Your friend
      #1 Clemson Fan
      Arthur
      Greer. SC

      Delete
  4. The McAdams crew watched the volleyball match on ACC network...we had a few good laughs with the announcer's use of Piper "Poe" and Dani Busboom - his partner got it right except she waxed poetically and at length about UofL volleyball playing in the KFC Yum Center. I suspect there will be some practice this week involving getting the ball both over the net and into the playing field. Without the 20 serving errors the match against Clemson was not that close.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And UofL announcers never make mistakes?

      Delete
    2. I will say that, sport for sport, UofL has the best ACC Network Extra announcers of all the ACC schools. And that's just not ego talking. I've heard a lot of the rest. No comparison.

      Paulie

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