Softball, Lacrosse, WBB and NCAA WBB Tourney -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

SOFTBALL SWEPT BY CLEMSON 

Another tough day on the diamond for Louisville Softball on Sunday, falling to the Clemson Tigers 4-2 at Ulmer Stadium. The Cards had a chance to tie it up in the bottom of the seventh with a runner on and tying batter at the plate, but Clemson pitcher Valerie Cagle shut the door on the UofL rally. 

Cagle definitely helped her cause yesterday, going to 12-1  on the season. She had all four RBI's for the Tigers and socked two home runs against Louisville pitching.  Clemson took and early 2-1 lead in the first inning, Cagle getting a two RBI single off Taylor Roby and her home runs in the third and sixth inning accounted for the other two Clemson scores. 

Louisville drops to 9-11 overall and 3--6 in ACC play. Clemson, who swept all four games in the series, improved to 20-2 overall and 12-2 in conference play. The Tigers are #23 ranked. 

For the Cards, their two runs came from Celene Funke in the first inning and Carmyn Greenwood in the sixth. 

Louisville hosts #16 Virginia next, that series starting on Friday, March 26th.

Cards head Softball skipper Holly Aprile had this to say about the game and the series vs. the Tigers: 

LINK:  POST GAME HOLLY APRILE 3/21/21 

(Thanks to Jared for the Softball photos) 

NOTRE DAME DOWNS LOUISVILLE LACROSSE. 

The Floyd Street action started at noon Sunday, when Louisville Lacrosse squared off against #4 Notre Dame at the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium. 

The Irish jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on the Cards in the first 12 minutes, before Caroline Blalock could get UofL on the score board and the match stood at 4-1 with 12:25 left in the first half. The Cards got hot, though, and goals from Bella Karstien, Allegra Catalano and Hannah Morris tied it up at 4-4 with 7:05 left in the first half. Notre Dame found a rally, though, against the Cards defense and put the final three goals of the half on the board to take a 7-4 lead to the halftime tent.  

Another slow start to begin a half hurt the Cards, as the ND squad connected for the first two goals of the second half.  Once again, the Cards built a rally and cut the lead to 9-6 after Paige Richbourg and Ally Hall found the net. The Irish responded with two goal, and Louisville returned the favor -- Ally Hall and Kokoro Nakazawa connecting to draw the Cards within three at 11-8 . 

Notre Dame showed why they are a top five squad, though, pushing their advantage back out to 13-10 and they ended the scoring with the final two goals for the 15-10 win. 

Ally Hall led Louisville with three goals, all in the second half, as the Cards go to 4-4 on the season and 0-3 in ACC play. Louisville heads to Boston for two matches against the Eagles next, 

Lou LAX head coach Scott Teeter spoke with me after the contest: 

LINK:  SCOTT TEETER POST GAME NOTRE DAME 3/21/21

(Thanks to Jared for the LAX photos) 

CARDS WBB GETS IT STARTED TONIGHT ! 

Louisville women's basketball begins their 2021 NCAA Tournament this Monday evening with an 8:00 p.m. contest against the Marist Red Hawks. 

The two squads will face off in San Antonio's Alamodome, Louisville the #2 seed and Marist the #15 seed. The contest will be aired on ESPN. 

The Red Hawks went  18-3 during the regular season and 13-3 in the MAAC, winning the regular season and conference tournament. They average 63.6 ppg and allow just 50 a contest. Marist post Willow Duffell leads Brian Giorgis' squad with 12.3 ppg and 9.2 grabs a night. 

 

The Cards are 11-0 in firt round games played under Jeff Walz and have four players on the roster who have previously played in the NCAA WBB Tournament. Dana Evans and Mykasa Robinson suited up for Louisville during the Cards run two years ago. Kianna Smith played in the 2018 and 2019 tournaments when she was at California and Ahlana Smith was a member of the 2019 UCLA tournament team. 

Jeff Walz, Kianna and Hailey Van Lith held a tele-conference Sunday morning to discuss the season and upcoming tournament. I have the audio of that below. Be advised, it runs over a half-hour, so grab a coffee and get comfortable. 

LINK: WALZ, VAN LITH AND K. SMITH TELECONFERENCE 3/21/21

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In the first round of tournament play Sunday, 16 games were contested. The winners were Stanford, Oklahoma St., South Carolina , Oregon State, Georgia Tech, West Virginia, Connecticut, Syracuse, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Baylor, NC State and South Florida. 

It was a "favorites" first day...the better seeds won each of the 16 contests. 

CARDINAL COUPLE NCAA PICK 'EM CONTEST

We ended up with 20 contestants in our CARDINAL COUPLE NCAA WBB TOURNAMENT PICK 'EM, and Bracket Czar Jared and I have verified your first round results and standings. 

One person remains undefeated in the 16 games contested Sunday -- that being first-time entrant Callie Blue  She's being closely chased by Kenny S., and Jared at 15-1. The rest of the numbers: 

14-2:  Jeff McAdams, Jason, David Watson, Paulie, Clemson Cuz

13-3: Sonya, Bea and The Cardinal Couple Chimps

12-4:  Vivian, KStarksr, Blue Lou, Case, Arthur

11-5:  Nick O, Curtis, Nole Knowledge and Joe Hill 

Squads that hurt brackets?   Wake Forest losing to Okla.State gave more than a few a bracket loss. FSU stumbling against Oregon State also tripped up a few bracket entries. Everyone did pretty well in the River Walk Region, though, Middle Tenn. State did have a bit of support but the Tennessee Vols eliminated them. 

Any disputes?  Contact Jared by leaving him a message in our comments section today or e-mailing him at eupherjared@gmail.com  Leave us a thought or comment in our comments section on the first day and today, AND...let's hope the Cards embarrass Marist. 

16 more games today! Best of luck to all !!

paulie