Sunday Cardinal Couple

 It was another busy Saturday on Floyd Street and elsewhere for the Cardinals.  Let's dig in.

Softball

The Softball struggles continue.  A double-header with Duke didn't turn out in Cards favor.  Louisville dropped the first game 1-9, and the second game 4-5.

We've talked much of the season about stringing hits together, and that's what Duke did in the 3rd inning of the 1st game.  The biggest offensive play in the inning was a double, with the rest of the base advancement coming from singles, walks, steals, and errors and managed to score five in the inning.

Maddy Newman

Louisville would get their one run back in the bottom of the 3rd.  Maddy Newman doubled, advanced to 3rd on a Sydney Bickel sacrifice, then scored on Carmyn Greenwood's single.

After Duke's five in the 3rd inning, they added on another pair in the 4th, as well as in the 5th, reaching their score of nine, and crucially eight or more than the Cards had, triggering the run-rule at the end of the 5th inning after the Cards couldn't score to keep it going.

Sydney Bickel

In the second game, Duke got all of their scoring in, and then let UofL try to answer.  Duke got it going early in the 1st inning with 3 runs, then tacked on another pair in the 4th.

In the home half of the 4th, Makayla Hurst reached on an error, Jenna Servi came in to pinch run, advanced on a sacrifice, then stole 3rd.  Maddy Newman brought her home with a single.  Gabby Holloway then got her first career homerun to score Newman as well.

The Cards would tag on another in the 7th when Sydney Bickel tripled and came home on Carmyn Greenwood's single.

Gabby Holloway finishing her home run jog
around the bases.

The Cards were hoping to get some good play and momentum going this weekend, but are struggling to get consistent offense going.  Case mentioned during the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast yesterday that the Cards have only won three games this season without hitting a homerun.  While the long balls are great fun, a team really needs to get consistent offense in other ways to be really successful.

The Cards will finish the series against Duke at noon today, available on ACC Network Extra.

Field Hockey Senior Day

Field Hockey celebrated Senior Day with a 4-1 win over Wake Forest.  Maybe the biggest news was that Mercedes "Meche" Pastor did not participate in the festivities, suggesting perhaps she'll be taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility from Covid-19 to return next year?  We'll see and certainly be excited if she does.

It was a quiet first half, with only Wake Forest scoring in the second quarter.  Louisville wouldn't get their offense going until the second half.

The Cards did get on the board late in the third quarter, though.  Meche would sneak a shot in from a penalty corner with less than eight minutes left.

Then the fourth quarter happened.  Emilia Kaczmarczyk got the assist past three Wake defenders to Aimee Plumb for the score in the opening minutes.

With just over 10 minutes left, the Cards would get another penalty corner.  Plumb would have the insertion to Charlie van Oirschot who set up Julie Kouijzer for the goal.

The last score came with under four minutes on the clock.  Plumb fed Katie Schneider for the goal.

There is an ACC Championship Game set for next Saturday the 24th, but UofL will not be a part of that.  The ACC did hold their tournament in the fall, which makes this whole thing a bit odd ball.  In any case, UofL will await news of whether they get one of the very scarce at-large bids to the NCAA tournament this year.

Today's Events

In addition to Softball finishing their series against Duke, Lacrosse will be playing the 2nd game of the weekend against Syracuse at noon on ACC Network Extra.

Volleyball matches up against Washington at 3:30pm (2:30 for me out here in Omaha).  Washington is the 6th seed in the tournament, UofL is the 11th.  The Huskies took a full five set match, plus an extra point or two in one of the sets to get past an, I believe, under-rated Dayton team.  A win today would match up the Cards with either 3rd seed Minnesota, or unseeded Pitt.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Basketball, Volleyball, Lacrosse, Field Hockey, Softball, and more in the discussion yesterday during the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast.  You can check out the Youtube stream below, I was streaming it from the hotel in Omaha, which explains some of the audio challenges at the beginning.  It gets sorted out about six minutes in.  Or you can check out the podcast version at your favorite location for podcasts, it didn't


have suffered from the same audio glitch.