Lacrosse Opens Season at Home -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Teeter's Squad Hosts Ohio State

Louisville lacrosse is off to the races this week in their season opener, which is no surprise based on past seasons, but the unusual part this year is that they won't open with their traditional Colorado opponents. This year, Louisville will open the season at home, and they'll take on the Buckeyes of Ohio State. Louisville and OSU meet regularly, with the home team winning the last two matchups. Ohio State leads the all-time series 8-4, and they beat the Cards 9-6 360 days ago. 

The Cards are 14-4 all-time in home openers, which is quite the impressive mark. They're 11-7 in overall season openers and they won last season's opener over the #15 ranked Denver Pioneers. The Cards finished last year 7-10 with a disappointing 1-8 ACC mark. Louisville seemed on the verge of a breakthrough in 2024 when they posted their best ACC record under Scott Teeter with three wins. Last season was a step back in that regard, and we'll be looking for the Cards to get back to a higher win total this season. 

Louisville is making a fair number of replacements, with perhaps the most critical of those being Ashley Osborne. Osborne was a sixth year senior defender who reached a program-record 82 games played last season. She had a team-high 25 ground balls last year in a season that saw her become the 8th player in program history to amass 100 career ground balls. The Cards graduated a total of eight seniors, which also included goalkeeper J Pleck. Pleck's 258 career saves were fifth all-time in the program. 

The Cards had a freshmen battle at the backup position last season between Hanna John and Haley Richards. John transferred out of the program, so Richards will look to win the spot over fellow sophomore Campbell Murray, who transferred from Mercer, and senior Aubrey Bagenstose, who has been a career Cardinal but has not seen action in a game since 2023. Richards had seven saves in five games last season. 

 

Louisville does return three of their top six scorers from last season and a pair of defenders who started all 17 games. Cate Kangas and Olivia Scroggie will continue to hold down the defense, while Rian Adkins and Reese Whiteman lead the offensive attack. Whiteman was the team leader in goals (26) and points (32) last year, while Adkins was third on the team with 23 points. 

Louisville and Ohio State will get underway at noon today, and admission to the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium is free. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case