Volleyball Sweeps; Soccer Falls in Conference Opener -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Takes Down Northern Iowa

As Jeff mentioned yesterday, he and I swapped days this weekend. Unfortunately, that means you won't get a Jeff writeup of either volleyball match this weekend. Since volleyball usually plays on Fridays and Sundays, you don't get Jeff covering them anyway, but that's beside the point. Yesterday Louisville hosted Northern Iowa in the Cards first match of the Cardinal Classic and walked away with a 25-23, 27-25, 25-15 sweep of the Panthers. 

Louisville didn't get off to the cleanest start yesterday, but they managed to stretch out to a 13-7 lead in the first set. A few miscues erased that lead, though, and UNI brought the game back to a one-point contest at 14-13. The Cards were able to build another small gap before the teams more or less traded pairs of points through the rest of the set. The Cards won the first game 25-23 on a combined block by Reese Robins and Cara Cresse. Yeah, I would avoid those two. 

The second saw Louisville as the chaser, but the Panthers couldn't build a lead larger than the 4-point advantage they held at 15-11. UNI did manage to take a 20-17 lead to make things rather nervy for the Cards, but Louisville won six of the next eight points to flip the script and take a 23-22 lead. Traded points led to extra volleyball, but another Cresse block made it 26-25 and an unforced error gave the Cards a 27-25 victory.

UNI won the first three points out of the half, and it seemed like we were in for another tight set. After the teams went back and forth for the first 30ish points, though, Louisville was done with the theatrics. A UNI kill made the score 15-14 in favor of Louisville, and the Cards decided that they wanted to be done for the day. The Cards won six straight points which included two blocks and an ace and put them up 21-14. A rare Elena Scott service error (rare for Scott, not for the team yesterday) broke the run, but Louisville won the next four points to take the game 25-15 and the match 3-0. 

Scott's ace in the final sequence was Louisville's only ace of the match. The Cards had a nightmare at the service line, swatting 10 service errors compared to the single ace. UNI had five aces and only eight errors, so the Cards made their lives much harder at the line. They'll need to clean that up against Creighton for sure. 

Offensively, only two players jump off the page. While Louisville hit 0.327 as a team, only two players exceeded that number on the floor. Outside of Charitie Luper's 0.536 and Cresse's 0.538, the highest Cardinals were Robins and Sofia Maldonado Diaz, who both hit 0.250. Luper and Cresse were impressive, though. Luper finished with 16 kills on 28 attempts and had just one error. Cresse was 9/13 with two errors. Cresse also led the team in blocks, taking two of Louisville's three solo blocks and adding four assists. The Cards outblocked the Panthers 11-3. 

Louisville's sweep should prime them for another top-ten matchup as they face Creighton today at 1PM. That match will be in the Yum! Center and it will be carried on ESPN. Creighton is currently 9th in the country and sits at 8-1 on the year. Their only loss came on the road against Nebraska, where they went down in five sets. The Blue Jays swept UNI on Friday and did the same against Rice yesterday morning. 

Cards Fall 3-1 at Pitt

Pittsburgh women's soccer finished last season ranked 8th in RPI. This season, they entered last night's game at 6-1-1. However, they weren't ranked as they drew Georgia to open the season and lost to Buffalo a week later. Their wins are over Duquesne, Bucknell, Loyola Marymount, Cal State Fullerton, Dartmouth, and Mercyhurst. Not many powerhouses in that bunch. I say that, though, to indicate that Pitt may be overlooked because of their loss to Buffalo. The Panthers had a good team last year and their goal difference stood at +21 entering last night's game. 

Am I rationalizing? Maybe. Louisville opened the season on a 5-0-2 undefeated streak before a road loss to Dayton broke up the party. After seven games without a loss, the Cards are now on the tail end of a 2-game losing streak with conference play upon them. Louisville still has plenty of time to recover, but Pitt was one of the games they would have liked to have had a result in. Even when the Panthers were ranked last season, Louisville managed to pull off the upset win. 

Louisville's offense has been a bit hit-or-miss this season. After the seven-goal explosion against Bellarmine to open the season, Louisville has scored only 13 goals in the eight games since opening night. Last week's game against Dayton was their only shutout so far, but they've been able to eclipse three goals in a game just twice. Offense was the missing piece again last night as the Cards couldn't match the pair of late goals by Pitt and lost 3-1. 

Kailey Kimball played all 90 minutes in goal for the second game in a row after Erynn Floyd left the game early against UT Martin. Kimball finished with nine saves, and the offense should have done more to help, but I'd like to see Louisville's starter get back to the pitch. Kimball is certainly an adequate replacement, but I don't think this team's ceiling is as high without Floyd in the net. 

Pitt scored first last night, breaking the tie just 11 minutes into the game. The Cards would tie it up with Karsyn Cherry's fifth goal of the season in the 21st minute. Like her previous four, this one came on a set piece, but it was quite different. Rather than heading in a corner kick, Cherry was tasked with taking a penalty. She slotted it home to make it 1-1. 

Tied at one is what the game would stay for the next 50ish minutes before Pitt's Samiah Phiri scored her sixth goal of the year. She matched Cherry ten minutes later with a penalty kick goal of her own, moving Phiri's total to seven. Louisville didn't have any answer offensively, as they managed just five shots on the evening (two on frame), and the Panthers took the victory. Pitt controlled the match offensively, and Louisville was fairly lucky to escape with just three goals allowed. Pitt took 27 shots in the match. Yikes. 

Louisville will get a break to get back on track and end their skid. After 12 days off, the Cards will head back on the road as they go down to Blacksburg for their next match to take on Virginia Tech on 9/26. VT is 6-2-1 on the year so far and they'll take on Syracuse today. The Hokies drew Monmouth in late August and dropped back to back games against Liberty and Northwestern last weekend. They opened conference play with a road win against Clemson, though, so they're certainly no slouches. They'll play BC next Sunday before meeting the Cards.

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case