Soccer Faces Tough Test at NC State -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards and Wolfpack Battle for ACC Berth

Louisville women's soccer is almost guaranteed a spot in the NCAA tournament at this point. Taking a point off of a top-15 opponent on the road against Wake Forest and then doing the same at home against a top-5 Virginia team speaks volumes. Louisville moved to 11-3-2 on Saturday night and is 4-2-2 in conference play with two games to go. One of those games is tonight, when Louisville will take on NC State in Raleigh. The game will see two teams with 14 ACC points face off in a match where they fight for one of the six spots in the ACC tournament. 

The Cards and Wolfpack are two of four teams with 14 points, tied also with Virginia and Florida State. Virginia and NC State both have a game in hand on the Cards, with three games remaining on the schedule, but Florida State is truly tied. The four teams are currently tied for fourth, so one of them is out of the tournament at the moment. Which of those teams it is, though, is a little difficult to tell. Tiebreakers will have a large part to play, but there isn't a whole lot of reason to pay attention to those until everyone is facing their final match day. One thing that is important to note is that Louisville is tied with three teams but just one win (or less) ahead of four other teams, three of those with one more game to play than Louisville. 

The top-line takeaway from all of that is that Louisville should focus on beating NC State and SMU to close the season and let the chips fall where they may. If the Cards finish with 20 points in conference and get left out of the conference tournament, so be it. In that case, they will have lost two matches to top-10 opponents on the road and taken two difficult draws from quality opponents while winning six games. It would be hard to argue against that being a great season in the ACC.

First up is tonight's match. Louisville will be without Ella Bard, as the freshman defender is in Portugal with the USYNT. Bard has played in 13 matches, starting seven, and has played 849 minutes. She played the entire second half against Virginia, so it's not as if Louisville won't miss her this week. The show must go on, though, so Hadley Snyder will be forced to carry even more load in the middle of the defense, and we may see some other players shift around if she can't go the full 90. 

Defense will be important, as something changed for NC State starting with the Campbell game on September 7th. The Wolfpack started the season 0-5-2 against questionable competition other than #20 (at the time) Michigan State. In that early non-conference slate, they scored just three goals and gave up 14. Then, suddenly, they turned their season around after a 0-0 draw against Elon. Three days later, they scored their highest goal total of the season with a 4-0 win over Campbell and have lost just one conference game since. That loss was a 2-1 defeat on the road at Notre Dame. They drew FSU at home 1-1 and VT on the road 4-4, and they beat Wake Forest 2-1 in Raleigh, just before Louisville drew them in Winston-Salem. They've scored 11 conference goals and given up eight. 

NC State will be a tough customer. I'm not sure what to attribute their sudden renaissance to, but Louisville would dearly love to shut down their magical conference season. The Cards have played well, but a draw against NC State might not be enough. With just two games to go, it would be nice to finally find some of those goals they scored in the non-conference season. NC State has obviously shown their propensity to allow scoring, having had four games with three or more goals given up. 

NC State has elected to make tonight's match Senior Night, instead of their final home game on Sunday against Duke. That's probably saying something about their opinion of Louisville, so it might be good bulletin board material for the Cards. With an ACC tournament berth on the line and NCAA tournament seeding to play for, Louisville needs to show up and show out tonight against the Wolfpack. Tonight's match will be on ACC Network Extra at 7PM. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

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