Volleyball News
Louisville Volleyball’s Tori Dilfer has been named a Honda Sports Award Finalist. She is one of four finalists for volleyball. The Honda Sports Award is given to one female athlete for each women’s sport.
Dilfer was named the first ever ACVA First Team All-American for Louisville Volleyball (Anna Stevenson was also named a First Team All-American this season). She was also named ACC Setter of the Year and East Region Player of the Year. Dilfer was an integral part of the first ever #1 ranking for the Cards, an ACC Championship, and Louisville’s first ever Final Four appearance.
It’s a common saying “You live and die by your setter”, similar to what you see with a quarterback in football or point guard in basketball. .
It wasn’t too difficult for Dilfer to have a successful final year due to the loads of talent she was surrounded by. With fellow All-Americans Anna Stevenson (first team) and Anna DeBeer (third team). Claire Chaussee, Akko Jones, Amaya Tillman, and Elena Scott were all named to the All-ACC Second Team- the other three were named All-ACC First Team- so at any given time during the season, Louisville had enough award winners on the court to fill an entire 'starting seven’.
Speaking of Anna Stevenson, the middle blocker had some great news announced yesterday. Stevenson’s volleyball career will continue as she has signed a professional contract with the Turkish club Aydin Buyuksehir Belediyespor. My iPad doesn’t allow certain characters and said accents on those letters so what you’re reading is the American English keyboard spelling.
Stevenson will be eligible to compete in the second half of the current Turkish Women’s Volleyball League season. The team has already announced on their Instagram page @aydinbuyuksehirbelediyespor the news and how excited they are to have her on the team.
We have seen over the last few seasons just how excellent Stevie’s volleyball skills are and it comes as no surprise she will now being professional volleyball.
For those who don’t follow professional volleyball, it is quite an honor and a high recognition to a player’s skill set to be able to play overseas. Tess Clark and Erin Fairs are other former Cards currently playing overseas. There isn’t much opportunity to play volleyball professionally in the United States at this time, but hopefully as the sport continues to grow we will see a stronger presence here.
Almost Back to Basketball
The Christmas/Holiday break is almost over. For the Louisville Band, Cheerleaders, and Ladybirds, they all boarded a plane to Texas yesterday for the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl. Surprisingly, Louisville Football is favored to win this one.
But back on campus, Louisville Women’s Basketball has reported back to campus for workouts and practices. The Cards open ACC play on Thursday at 7:00 p.m., against Boston College at the KFC Yum! Center.
For Louisville, a 10-1 record is a good start, especially after a disappointing season opener to Arizona. Since then, Louisville has taken down ranked opponents Michigan, Kentucky, and UConn. Paul gave you a good rundown (someone tell Jim Halpert what a rundown is) of ACC Women’s Basketball yesterday and just how good or not-so-good some of those teams have been doing.
The Cards have some stiff competition this year. Besides NC State, North Carolina, Duke, Georgia Tech, Norte Dame, and Wake Forest have all had hot starts. Similar to ACC Volleyball, ACC Women’s Basketball appears to have a strong number of teams this year. Boston College comes in at 8-3 and has Taylor Soule back, who is averaging almost 17 points a contest.
We’ll preview the UofL vs BC game more thoroughly later this week. Paulie and I both plan to be in attendance for that one as I should be back in town late tomorrow night.
Thankfully, Katy’s family and I have limited our contact with the outside world minus a couple things here and there. Sadly, my family back home has not been as fortunate as many of them have come in contact with my cousin’s partner, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Christmas Day (days after I had already left Louisville). So Katy and I will avoid them for a while when we get back in town, but thankfully everyone has been symptom-free or had symptoms similar to that of a minor cold.
As the holiday season wraps up we encourage everyone to monitor potential symptoms as the CDC has stated they expect a big increase in positive cases over the next couple of weeks. Masks and vaccines can save lives, folks.
Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!
Jared
Sorry to hear about your family's dance with Omikron. Half my office has been exposed, we'll be closed until mid-January probably.
ReplyDeleteGreat news on Dilfer and Stevenson. Many more to follow. Hoops is back safely, from what you are saying? Good to hear.
Blue Lou
Stevenson was invited to play for Athletes Unlimited as well,with their...unique...scoring system.
ReplyDeleteBut playing in Europe is rather more lucrative for players.