Two Sports Seasons End
Field Hockey and Soccer both saw their seasons end yesterday.
Field Hockey was waiting on results from other competitions in the conference to decide their fate, and the results weren't what was desired in Trager Stadium.
Specifically, the results came down to the Stanford vs Cal game. UofL was in a tie for last place in the conference with the two California teams, and the conference tournament takes eight out of the nine teams in conference to the conference tournament. The first tie breaker in standings is the results of the head to head game between two teams. Louisville had beaten Stanford, but lost to Cal, so needed Cal to win this game, leaving the last place tie between Stanford and Louisville, allowing Louisville to advance with the tie breaker.
Alas, Stanford took the win in the game, 3-1, putting them in, at worst, sole possession of 7th place, but more likely in a tie with Wake Forest for 6th place (2-5 Wake plays 5-2 Virginia later today). Regardless, that leaves Cal and Louisville tied for 8th. And with Cal having the tie breaker head-to-head, that leaves Louisville out in the cold for the conference tournament.
With an overall record below .500, Louisville is ineligible for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, definitively wrapping the season for the Cards.
On the Soccer side of things, the team played Clemson to a scoreless draw yesterday. With regular season play in the ACC being wrapped, UofL ends up 12th in the standings, considerably short of the cut to make the ridiculously small six team tournament draw.
The team's overall record of 7-6-5 does, technically, leave them eligible for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, but with an RPI ranking of 62, that's not going to happen.
For what it's worth, the Cards showed some strong defense in the game yesterday, with Erynn Floyd recording six saves in the 90 minutes of play.
The offense did put some pressure on Clemson, particularly Mackenzie Geigle who had two shots on goal in the final minutes of the game, but nothing was able to break through.
Both teams will now start looking towards spring exhibition play, with an eye towards development of players and tactics for next season.
Volleyball Gets an Extra Rest Day
The typical volleyball schedule, particularly during conference play, sees games on Friday and Sunday, but this week has been and continues to be a bit different for the Cards.
This week is the week that the Cards play their ACC "travel partner", Notre Dame. The league office saw fit to schedule travels partners with "home and home" arrangements this year, and to make those home and home exchanges happen in the same week. In past years, the home and home involved a random extra Wednesday match somewhere in the middle of the conference season, and then a late season match.
The Cards took the opportunity to rest Charitie Luper during the Wednesday match, giving Payton Peterson her first career start, which she took great advantage of with 9 kills, a service ace, a block and a half, and five digs in LNFCU arena.
So Louisville, instead of playing the normal Friday+Sunday schedule this weekend, gets an extra day of rest after the mid-week match, and will head up to South Bend for the second half of the home and home tomorrow at 3pm.
Basketball Teams
Yes, plural. While the basketball season doesn't get started until Monday, we do have a couple of tidbits on teams of local interest.
The Cardinals are in Paris France, exploring the city of light. Social media placed them at the Louvre yesterday, where they were certainly sporting bigger smiles than the Mona Lisa. They'll have the weekend to explore still, though I'm sure they're getting some practice time is as well before their Monday game against UCLA. And they're dining at the Eifel Tower tonight...something that has to be on most people's "if I only could" list...
Perhaps less cool than a trip to Paris, or maybe moreso, depending on your mindset, I ran across much of the Bellarmine Women's Basketball team yesterday while I was early voting at Immanuel UCC church on Taylorsville Road (just down the road, and shorter lines than at Bowman Field yesterday, also the church that our wonderful photographer Jared attends). They were there, and also apparently had a contingent at Bowman Field, to assist with the voting location in whatever way they could. They primarily were arrayed at the stairs from the parking lot down to the level where the voting is setup. There are accessible ramps, but they do take you a bit out of the way, so the Bellarmine folks were assisting folks that were perhaps a bit uncomfortable with the steps to negotiate them. Good deeds by a good team that we should be proud to have representing our city along with the Cards.
I was informed by Assistant Coach, and UofL alumnae, Mo Reid that Bellarmine also begins their season on Monday night at 6:30 at Knights Hall on the Bellarmine's campus. Their opponent will be Indiana University SouthEast, which is also, of course, also a Louisville area team. I also go the chance to be meet Head Coach Chancellor Dugan, which was a pleasure.
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JMcA
