Soccer Faces USC Upstate -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Homestand Continues

The Louisville women's soccer team will continue their run of matches at home today as they look to move to 4-1 with a match against USC Upstate. Today's match will come at an extremely unique time, likely at least somewhat to do with the upcoming holiday weekend. The Cards will host the Spartans with a kickoff at 3PM. While that wouldn't be terribly strange for a Saturday or Sunday game, today is Thursday. USC Upstate apparently needs to catch an early flight to get back, creating an unusual midweek "getaway day" game. At any rate, Louisville has found itself with some unseasonably mild weather this week, so the mid-afternoon start shouldn't be too terrible with a high of just 79 degrees. 

A quick click of the "history" link on this matchup takes you directly to the general UofL women's soccer history page, indicating that this is the first ever matchup between these two teams. Sounds like a great time for the Cards to add a new team to the list of "teams against whom Louisville has an all-time winning record." The Spartans (who hail from Spartanburg, South Carolina) are 1-2 so far this season. They opened with a 1-0 win over Wofford but followed that victory with 3-0 and 2-1 losses to Davidson and EKU, respectively. Interestingly, despite opening the season in Spartanburg, USC Upstate has yet to play a regular season match at their home stadium as Wofford is also located in Spartanburg. The Spartans played EKU in Lexington last Thursday and had Sunday off, so they probably wouldn't have minded Louisville scheduling their bunny games a bit differently. 

Last season, USC Upstate finished quite strong. The Spartans went 10-5-4 overall with a 5-1-2 record in the Big South Conference. They won the Big South Championship, giving them the automatic qualifier and earning the honor of heading to Chapel Hill to be throttled by the champions-to-be. UNC won that first round game 8-0. The Spartans finished the season ranked 155th in RPI, second in their conference behind the Big South two-seed High Point by four spots. That couldn't have felt great, considering the Spartans had just thumped the Panthers 3-0 in the title game. 

USC Upstate returns 16 players from their 2024 roster, meaning they have plenty of familiarity with one another. Their returners also include their top points earner from last season as well as two of top three goal scorers. Dara Russo is a senior from Miamisburg, Ohio who scored nine goals and tallied five assists last year. While not the most efficient player on the team, her efficiency was considerable. Russo took 56 shots and put 27 of those on target (with 9 in the net). It would be in Louisville's best interest to deny her opportunities in front of goal this afternoon. 

When I asked Coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes about how today's match looked in the post-game on Sunday, she was just as unsure as I was. With a new opponent and not a lot of film available (nor time to watch it), Louisville will be depending mostly on how to do better on their own. There was plenty to take from the last 60 minutes of Sunday's game for that, but it was a successful outing nonetheless. I won't talk down about a 7-2 win. While Louisville is unlikely to have a third straight game with at least seven goals, I would expect them to seek a return to the clean sheet. The match against Wright State saw some defensive breakdowns, even from the starting crew (or most of it) and today is an opportunity to clean that up. 

If you're able, try to head down to campus today. I would imagine Louisville will take all the attendance they can get. If you aren't, you'll be able to catch this one on ACC Network Extra. After today's match, Louisville is back at home on Sunday against Coastal Carolina. The match against the Chanticleers will be the Cards' second straight against a new opponent. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case