The Cardinals Fall Trio
No, we're not going for dinner at Olive Garden, but if anyone is treating, I'm a "yes." Instead we're talking about the trio of fall sports that we most closely follow here on Cardinal Couple; Soccer, Field Hockey, and Volleyball.
All three are in action today, but only one playing on Floyd Street.
Soccer
Let's start on Floyd Street, being the notional home of UofL Athletics.
Soccer continues their non-conference slate by welcoming in the Evansville Purple Aces. I do have to admit that "The Purple Aces" is one of my favorite mascots across the country, as it's delightfully out of the norm.
The Cards non-conference schedule is somewhat weak overall, and Evansville doesn't do much to dispel that idea. So far on the season they have a scoreless draw against Lipscomb, a loss to Western Kentucky (1-4), and a win over Lindenwood (2-1).
The Cards will get sufficient strength of schedule in conference play, but need to rack up some wins, and avoid losses in the non-conference section of the schedule. So far they're doing fairly well at that with no losses and only a single draw. Let's hope they can get into the win column again this evening.
Game time is at 7pm at the Lynn Stadium on Floyd Street. If you can't make it out, the stream is available on ACC Network Extra.
Volleyball
Volleyball is playing a home match today, but it's not at L&N FCU Arena on Floyd Street. Indeed, today is one of the seven matches that the Cards will be playing at the KFC Yum! Center downtown. One of those, of course, occurred Tuesday against Wisconsin. Three more will be played downtown before the Cards return to L&N FCU Arena to start conference play.
Today's opponent is 15th ranked Tennessee. And the Vols are certainly getting their season started with a bang. In addition to their match with us today (and, remember we're ranked 6th in AVCA pre-season), their previous match was against 7th ranked Penn State. Credit to the Vols for not taking it easy in non-conference play.
Tennessee may be thankful for the tougher pre-season as the SEC is looking a little shaky overall in volleyball. Most SEC teams won this weekend, (and then there's LSU) but many were very close battles against teams that really shouldn't have been.
Of course, it's still extremely early in season, so let's avoid drawing too many conclusions so early (but, really, LSU lost to Troy?).
First serve against Tennessee is at 4pm, and if you just got the news that you're coming back to Louisville, but aren't here yet (Congratulations Curtis!), you can catch it on ESPN2.
Field Hockey
And for the only true road game for the day, Field Hockey hung out in the DC Metro area after their bout with Maryland on Friday, and will play American on their home turf in northwestern Washington D.C.
Field Hockey got a later start on their season this year than they typically do, they usually kick it off alongside, and even sometimes slightly earlier than, women's soccer, but they were a week or two behind this year.
What that means is we're also extremely early in the season for Field Hockey as well, too early to be drawing too many conclusions about various teams, where we would normally start to have some idea of how things will shake out by this point.
American, like pretty much everyone in the league, only has a single completed game to look at, and that was an 0-1 loss in the second minute of the second overtime period against VCU.
The Cards will be looking to get into the win column after a similar loss to Maryland on Friday.
Being the host, American's streaming coverage determines the availability, and they're on ESPN+. The game gets underway at 1pm.
Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast
And, finally, three of us didn't go to the football game yesterday, so we were able to being you the weekly CCRHP. Of course, we were happy to be able to recap competitions from all three of the above sports, and just about every possible competition outcome, a win, a loss, and a draw.
Check it out!
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JMcA
I am confused about a new rule which caused Lou and I think TN to implement a 6-2. 2 setters? Jenn Hoffman spoke of it but I am not clear.
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