Big Day for Fall Sports -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Soccer Faces 2nd-Ranked Notre Dame

All three of Louisville's traditional fall women's sports teams are in action this evening, and soccer will be the first one to get underway. The Cards are on the road, taking on the Irish in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame has moved up to the #2 spot in the country on the back of an undefeated start to the season. The Irish are 9-0-1 this year, with their only non-win coming in Fayetteville, where they drew Arkansas 2-2. The Razorbacks were ranked 6th at the time and are currently tied for 7th. 

Notre Dame opened the season with a 2-1 win over Western Michigan before the Arkansas match. After that, they didn't give up another goal in non-conference play, beating Cincinnati, Michigan, Oakland, and Michigan State by a combined 18-0 score. A scheduled match against Marquette, their last in non-con, was canceled. The Irish haven't been as tight defensively since ACC play started, as they have yet to record a clean sheet. That said, their wins have come over NC State, Duke, North Carolina, and Clemson, so it hasn't exactly been easy sledding. The most recent game was on Sunday, where they posted five goals against the stingy Clemson Tigers defense. 

Louisville's offense may be able to find success against Notre Dame, so this one could go back-and-forth. The Irish have scored 14 goals in ACC play, but they've also given up seven. The 10-2 Cards have been a bit quieter on offense in conference play after lighting the world on fire in non-con, but Louisville has still scored four and only allowed two in their four conference games. Louisville is 3-1 in those games with three shutouts.

The Cards are getting more love from TopDrawer than they are from the Coaches' Poll, as TDS has Louisville ranked 10th, but tonight is still a ranked matchup nonetheless. The Cards have moved into the top-25 with a ranking of 23rd in the Coaches' Poll. Louisville is 20th in RPI. Tonight will also be just Louisville's fourth road game of the season. The Cards are 1-2 in those games, with the 1-0 win over Auburn to open the year and the two 2-0 losses to Vandy and FSU. Tonight would be a fantastic time to move that road record back to .500.

The match this evening gets underway at 6PM on ACC Network Extra.

FH Hosts Wake Forest

Louisville will face another top-10 opponent tonight when Justine Sowry's squad welcomes #7 Wake Forest to Trager Stadium. Wake is 7-2 this year with their only losses coming when they opened the season 0-2 against Iowa and Michigan. The Demon Deacons have a 3-0 conference record against tough opponents, and they've set a matching final score of 2-1 against Syracuse, Boston College, and North Carolina. The matches against Syracuse and UNC both went to overtime. 

Louisville is coming off of a tough loss to open their conference slate after the shootout loss at Stanford last week. The Cards have been up and down this season and currently sit at 5-4. They've had some successes with victories over ranked OSU and St. Joseph's, but it's the matches that have gotten away (Northwestern, Iowa, Stanford) that may haunt them going forward. 

Wake is a very good team, but Louisville has shown their ability to matchup against difficult opponents. The road ahead doesn't get much easier for the Cards, as they'll head to North Carolina for matches against Duke and UNC next weekend. That means tonight is a great opportunity to keep the season on track and carry some momentum into the rest of conference play. The match will be played at 6:30 and will also air on ACC Network Extra.

Volleyball in California Swing

The wide-net Cards have the late show tonight as they're in California to take on Cal and Stanford this weekend. Tonight's match won't get started until 10PM, so make sure to take a nap before the soccer match or after field hockey ends. 

The Golden Bears got off to a rocky start this year, as they sit at just 5-7, but they got a nice boost to open their conference play. Cal traveled to Virginia last weekend and took down Virginia Tech and Virginia with a final set score of 6-1 between the two matches. While those two teams aren't very good, they were road victories across the country for a Cal team that desperately needed some juice. Welcoming in the 6th-ranked Cardinals will be plenty of motivation for them to continue their good start to conference play. 

Louisville will look to continue their run of form as well. After a slew of matches in which the Cards dropped sets, they suddenly find themselves on a run of three straight sweeps, their longest stretch since the Cardinal Classic to open the year. Another sweep over Cal would help Louisville put some of the ghosts of the non-conference schedule behind them before a tough matchup against the Cardinal on Sunday. Like the other two matches tonight, the volleyball match will be on ACC Network Extra.

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case