Soccer Scores, Volleyball and Field Hockey Kick it Off

Soccer Scores

We've been saying that the soccer team needs to find some offense, and they did last night.

Ravin Alexander got the scoring underway...for the season... for the Cards with a 59th minute score to the top corner of the goal.  Give Addie Chester and Fiona Gaier the assists.

Unfortunately, the good news ends there.  Ravin's goal was an equalizer after Dayton got on the board early, in the seventh minute with a shot to the top center the goal.  Dayton then got the go-ahead goal in the 87th minute of play with a shot to the bottom right corner, taking the win 2-1.

0-2-1 is definitely not the start anyone was hoping for with this schedule, but the Cards will have a good chance to get in the win column on Sunday with a 7:30pm game against Northern Kentucky

Volleyball and Field Hockey Get Started

Volleyball

Volleyball gets the regular season underway with the Cardinal Classic, which brings in the Trojan from Troy, the Washington State Cougers, and the Wright State Raiders.  First up is Troy, from Troy Alabama.  Last year the Trojans went 18-13 and 11-5 in the Sun Belt conference, they lost in the second round of the Sun Belt tourney to James Madison, and lost in the opening round of the NIVC tournament to Tennessee Martin.  With all respect to the players and coaches of Troy, we're not exactly talking about a national powerhouse team, here.

Consider this a warmup before the Saturday night matchup against 21st ranked Washington State.  WSU, in addition to being famous for always having their flag at ESPN's Football College Gameday, earned a respectable 23-10 record last year, including an impressive 14-6 in the PAC-12.  This is, of course, the PAC-12 pre-plundering, so including UCLA, USC, Washington, Stanford, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and more, all quite impressive volleyball programs.  UofL fans will certainly remember the quarterfinal matching at the KFC Yum! Center where Oregon had match point in the fourth set.

Tonight's match against Troy will give us the first real idea of what the coaching staff is thinking in some position battles for the Cards, with the middle blocker position being again one of the biggest battles, but maybe a bit of a battle for the setter position as well.  There's an outside chance we might see a 6-2 offense, using two setters and two right side hitters, but I wouldn't be expecting it.

First serve is scheduled at 7pm, but there is a match before hand (between WSU and Wright State) and they will be clearing out the arena between games.  ACC Network Extra will carry the Louisville vs Troy match for those who can't make it in person.  It should be a fun romp, and I think we get Stephanie Cantway for color commentator, who is one of the better analysts we see on ACCNX.

Field Hockey

Field Hockey also gets their regular season underway at 7pm, which is a changed start time, against NorthEastern.  The game was originally slated to start at 5pm, but due to the extreme heat in Louisville over the past few days, it was moved back a couple of hours to get out of the peak heat of the day, and hopefully to get the sun off of the turf field a little bit which should also give a little relief.

Northeastern, much like Troy above in volleyball, is best considered a warm up.  They do sport a new head coach, who was promoted from Associate Head Coach after the previous head coach resigned with a literal "best wishes on her future endeavors" from the athletic director.

While soccer is looking for just about any sort of offense, field hockey is capable of generating offense from the field, but they still seem to be challenged in converting corner penalties.  Otherwise, though, the Cards aren't missing a beat from past years, with the defense and midfield still playing well, and the open field offensive production doing well.

And hey, here's a fun note for field hockey.  You've almost certainly heard about Aimee Plumb from England, who is a senior on the squad this year.  Well, her younger sister joins her this year, and be careful that you word it as "younger" sister, rather than "little sister.  While height isn't a major consideration, generally, in field hockey, the younger Plumb looks down on her older sibling by about four inches.

Field Hockey will also be on ACC Network Extra with the later 7pm start time meaning the Floyd Street is going to be at near peak chaos levels.

-- JMcA