Lacrosse Opens Season Next Week
With Louisville lacrosse set to start their season on February 7th at home against Denver, what better time than now to check in with head coach Scott Teeter? Yesterday, Paulie and Jared did just that, heading down to the Planet Fitness Kueber Center for a preseason chat. The guys got Teeter going and turned their conversation into a 20-minute experience. I encourage you to listen to the full interview at the link below, but here are some of my key takeaways.
Here is the listening link: 2025 Season Preview with Scott Teeter
On the Season Opener
Teeter opened with how excited the team is to get going. According to him, they've reached the point in the offseason where they just need to play another team. They're excited to play and practicing hard, but there's only so much you can do when every practice is running offensive sets that the defense already knows are coming.
Denver graduated a lot of players, much like Louisville. Denver's pride is defense and they lost a number of All-American defenders.
Denver does well with one year transfers and a number of players will step up, including some Canadians they know quite well.
With the changes, Louisville still knows they will be quite defensive focused. The scout is very different with a number of new players and a new offensive coordinator from Ohio State.
On This Year's Team
Louisville graduated a ton of minutes from last season, including, per Teeter, over 50% of their scoring offense. They'll look for experienced players to step up and fill the roles left open by Nicole Perroni, Kokoro Nakazawa, Allegra Catalano, and Kylie Dobson, but it will largely be by committee.
Players he expects to be a big part in stepping up include Lauren Figas, Rian Adkins, Negai Nakazawa, Izzy Seikel, and Maggie McMahon.
When asked for players that would be names that would grow in Louisville fans' consciousnesses, Teeter went back to the same well: McMahon, Nakazawa, Seikel, Figas, and Adkins.
The freshmen to watch include Ella Berg, who Teeter thinks is a top-ten freshman in the country. Berg scored the most goals for Louisville in fall ball. He also mentioned new attackers in Issy Leech and Kate Daniels.
Defensively, names that came up as standing out were Ashley Osborne (a 6th year player returning after losing her senior year in 2023 to injury. Osborne was a 4-time team MVP for Ballard and was Miss KY Lacrosse) and senior Ava Coyle. Young defenders may not start but will contribute significant minutes.
On the Weather
It's been unfortunate to not have the practices outside, with that making them unable to use one of the only dedicated women's lacrosse facilities in the country, but the UofL facilities made it easy to move indoors without missing much of a beat. Teeter chose to take the positives from the experience, noting it helps them with the difference in playing surfaces and should give some of the girls more of an opportunity to get inside playing experience before they go play at Marquette.
On the ACC
Excited about the new look ACC and playing Stanford and Cal for the first time, with Cal on the road to open the ACC conference season. Working on what the logistics of playing all the way in California will look like.
The ACC schedule will be difficult with UNC and BC among the top favorites to win the national championship. He also name checked Virginia, Syracuse, and Notre Dame, and believes the ACC is the top conference in the country.
Happy to see the expansion of lacrosse as more programs like FSU add a team and is looking forward to the return of lacrosse to the Olympics in 2028.
On Rule Changes
This is largely a non-change year as the rules are on a two-year cycle. One change to note is that midfield charges will now just be a common foul with change of possession rather than a green card penalty.
It was a three-pronged approach to adjustment last season. Coaches had to change their systematic approach, players had to change the way they play, and officials adjusted the way they called the game.
A Surprise for Paulie
As we look ahead to the new season, Paulie was curious about how Negai is adjusting to life in the US and on the team without Kokoro. Always happy to get one over on Paulie, Teeter was glad to say that they haven't needed to address that as Kokoro hasn't gone anywhere: she's the student assistant for UofL this season.
Kokoro has largely served as a personal coach for Negai, but is also focused on helping the other attackers. Negai is playing very confidently after the gold medal for Japan and Teeter expects her to fill the role largely left by Kokoro.
Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast
We'll have four on board this week, and gee, I wonder what we'll talk about. We're in the thick of the conference season for basketball, volleyball had major news, and we're less than a week away from the spring sports season. You can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!
Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link
Spotify: Link
Apple Podcasts: Link
Google Podcasts: Link
Overcast (free account required): Link
Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link
RadioPublic: Link
Until next time, Go Cards!
Case
Nice interview with Teeter! He is getting a bit more like Walz with his ease before a camera and teasing Paulie. A look at ACC LAx indicates just how strong the conference is The Lax Cards have their work cut out for them.
ReplyDeleteCurtis "Chicks with net...rut row" Franklin