Sunday Cardinal Couple - Soccer Alumnae Inaugurate a Venue

NWSL Turning Left?

Allison

Will Racing Louisville FC's game plan today involve attacking up the left side?  Emina Ekic has been playing as a left side attacker, and they'll be playing in a venue well known for left turns, so let's hope the strategy brings success.

Yes, Racing Louisville FC is playing in a special game against the Orlando Pride today.  It's an away game, so don't head down to Lynn Family Stadium to watch.  If you're in Orlando, well, it's not going to be there, either.

Instead, the teams will be matching up inside the Daytona International Speedway, to take part in The Daytona Soccer Fest.  It is being billed as the "first ever", so there seems to be some expectations that this is an event that may occur again.

Emina

Racing will be playing with two Louisville alumnae on the roster, with Allison Whitfield joining the club after having played for the organization's USL W League team, their pre-professional development side.  Whitfield played in every game for the side until she was signed to the international replacement contract with the main Racing Louisville FC team.

This is a great opportunity for our the NWSL as a whole, not to mention Racing Louisville, and the Orlando Pride, to get some prime-time exposure on CBS Sports at 8pm.  The game will immediately follow the New York Liberty vs Los Angeles Sparks game on the station.  Alas, no UofL rooting interests in that one anymore.

Will we see Whitfield get on the pitch?  She was added to the roster on a short term contract to help replace several players who have been called up to international duty, including Nadia Nadim, Emily Fox, Rebecca Holloway, and Satara Murray.  

WNBA Check in

Dana Evans played a little over seven minutes with the Sky yesterday in their matchup with the Phoenix Mercury.  She hit a pair of three pointers, got a defensive rebound and a pair of assists in Chicago's 91-75 win over the Mercury.

Emily Engstler and the Indiana Fever are not in action until Tuesday night.  The Fever seem to be showing all of their games on their Facebook page, which is nicely accessible.

For today's UofL rooting interests, you've got a 1pm game with Myisha Hines-Allen and the Washington Mystics and the Connecticut Sun on ESPN, and a 3pm game with AD Durr and the Atlanta Dream hosting the Seattle Storm and the Sue Bird farewell tour on NBA TV and maybe Amazon Prime?

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

( I do what when who gets the what where? Why?)  

Paulie returns, but Case had an early alarm to go watch boats go fast on the Ohio River, so it was a foursome yesterday on the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast.  Daryl, Jared, Paulie and myself covered the news of the week, which was largely dominated by official fall sports schedule releases.  We got a sneak peak of Volleyball last week, but we got a look at Field Hockey and Women's Soccer this week.

You can check out the lightly edited audio at it's podcast home on anchor.fm at:

https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/Schedule-Announcement-Season-and-a-Tall-Basketball-Player-e1knu0a

or at any of your favorite podcast sources.

Close the Book - Sunday Cardinal Couple

 Close The Book

Today we, fairly quietly here at Cardinal Couple, close the book on the 2021-2022 UofL athletic season.

It's not all done for the NCAA as a whole, Baseball will be closing out their SuperRegional events today and tomorrow with the College World Series starting Thursday and running through, potentially, June 27th.

Here at UofL, though, Baseball lost to Texas A&M yesterday, making the Aggies the first team to punch their ticket to the CWS and officially ending the season for UofL Baseball.  Meanwhile, in the Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, a pair of Cardinal athletes, both men, competed yesterday, on the final day of the competition.

That's it.  There are no more events on the GoCards Composite Schedule.

Of course, that doesn't mean there is nothing for us to do over the next couple of months.  There will be news stories about the programs and individuals who are or have been involved with those programs.  And we'll do our level best to bring those stories to you as we come across them.  All of us, the writers of Cardinal Couple, have worked to cultivate an information network to help us try catch them all to help funnel those stories into the pages here at Cardinal Couple.

Being the Sunday writer, it's typically a good day over the summer to catch up with our alumnae in the WNBA, and NWSL.

We will also, of course, start to look a little bit ahead to the fall sports.  It's a little early right now for too much of that, but over the course of the summer we'll start to see the rosters get updated, we'll get some schedule announcements, and for better or for worse, we could still hear some player transfers get announced, both outward and inward.

For now, I think we can say it has been a successful year.  We had two teams, Volleyball and Women's Basketball, reach the Final Four in their 64 team brackets.  We have an individual National Champion in Gabriela Leon.  And we have had many teams perform well, with integrity and pride.

It's been a good year.

WNBA Schedule

(Remember When??) 

Las Vegas and Los Angeles were the only WNBA teams in action yesterday, and with no UofL rooting interests there, we move onward.

Dana Evans and the Chicago Sky visit the New York Liberty, and I must admit it seems a little weird not to have a UofL alumna involved in the Liberty as there have been ties between the programs for a number of years, now.  A 2pm start, you can catch this one via Amazon Prime streaming, or via the Yes App.

Myisha Hines-Allen with the Washington Mystics will host the Phoenix Mercury at 6pm.  I don't see any useful streaming options for this one at all.  Maybe NBC Sports, but I believe it to be regionally restricted.

Emily Engstler continues to see some good court time with the rebuilding Indiana Fever.  You can check them out via their Facebook page, https://facebook.com/indianafever as they travel to the Minnesota Lynx for a 7pm game.

NWSL/Racing Louisville FC

Emina Ekic has been consistently getting some good minutes with Racing Louisville FC, typically entering the game early in the second half.  Last night was no exception, entering in the 51st minute for Alex Chidiac.

It was a back and forth game overall between Racing and Angel City FC (Los Angeles).  The game winner for Angel City came during the nearly 10 minutes of stoppage time in the second half via a penalty kick.

Ekic was a significant presence, attacking on the left wing.  She had several opportunities, including one with an excellent cut-back that left the defender on roller skates, moving the ball towards the center and a strong shot that was, alas, just off frame.

Racing will be in action again Friday at the Washington Spirit.  Paramount+ has the streaming platform for this one for the 7:30pm start.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

There was still plenty to talk about for the CCRHP with Jared, Paulie, and myself on the call.  We talked former Cards, current Cards, Cards to be, Cards that potentially might be, and a National Champion Card.

It's a fun hour...ish of discussion as usual.  Check it out at it's podcast home at anchor.fm, lightly edited this week by yours truly in Case's absence.

https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/Former-Cards--Current-Cards--Future-Cards--Potential-Future-Cards--and-a-National-Champion-Card-e1jqnpl

-- JMcA

Sunday Cardinal Couple

A Butchertown Outing

With an unplanned Saturday evening, and Racing Louisville FC in town, I decided to check out my first game at "the other Lynn", Lynn Family Stadium in Butchertown.

Racing Louisville FC hosted the Portland Thorns in a nearly picture perfect day for an outdoor sporting event, so I decided to go catch the game.  A quick jaunt downtown, and I found easy on-street parking on Witherspoon underneath the I-64 and I-71 ramps.  After spending a few minutes navigating the electronic ticket system run by Seatgeek, I did finally manage to get a barcode on my phone and gained entry.  My seat was good with mostly good sight lines from about halfway up the upper deck.  Crucially, for your fair skinned reporter, the seat was on the western side of the stadium, and thus in the evening shade.

I arrived early, circled the interior of the stadium to explore a bit in this my first visit, and picked a place to eat.  The cheeseburger was not gourmet, though the seasoned fries were decent, and the total tally for the burger, fires, and a large bottle of water was $10...definitely not bad for stadium fare.  There were a number of potential options for food, and some of the others hold promise of being more culinarily rewarding, and prices were quite reasonable across the board.

Oh, how did the game go?  Well, the Thorns are good.  They're down about five players who are off playing internationally in the lead-up to the Olympics right now, but they're still good.  The team sits in second in the leagues standings, and even with a depleted roster was able to keep majority control of the game.  Racing put up a good fight, particularly early, but eventually fell to the Thorns 2-0.

Early aggression for Racing didn't work out so well.  A handful of...let's call them "quirky"...calls by the official deflated the energy of the home team.  A first half foul called on Racing in the box was particularly poorly received by the admittedly biased crowd, which resulted in a penalty kick for the Thorns and the first score of the game.

For the second half of the game, I relocated down to the end zone at the open end of the stadium to hang out with a friend has his season tickets in the Waterfront Supporters  Zone.  The second score for the Thorns, then, was at the far end of the field from me, so I didn't get a good view of it.  Regardless, the damage was done.

While the majority of the control in the game went to Portland, it wasn't overwhelming, with Racing have a number of opportunities to attack and challenge the Portland GK, but nothing found its way into the net.

Former Card Emina Ekic did see action, playing 16 minutes at the end of the game.  She got several touches and made some great moves toward goal, but wasn't able to connect.

FC Racing Louisville will be on the road for the next game.  Orlando will be the hosts on Friday with a 7pm start.  Racing returns home for a 3pm game on July 25th where the smart money is on it being hot and humid compared to last night's wonderfully comfortable weather.

NY Liberty and Jones Acrobatics

Jazmine Jones may have the most watched play of the WNBA for the week in the NY Liberty's 82-79 win over the Washington Mystics.

The Liberty got some insignificant leads in the opening minutes of the first quarter before the Mystics would go on a 14-2 run to close out the opening frame 28-15.  The Liberty wouldn't lead again until under four minutes left in the game before going on to the narrow victory.

Jones scored 17 in just over 21 minutes of play.  She went 4-9 from the field, and 2-3 from three point range.  Add a perfect 7-7 from the charity stripe, five rebounds, a steal, and a block, and you have a pretty darn good game for the Tallahassee lassie.

The play that's getting everyone's attention was early in the 3rd quarter, with Jones attempting to corral a rebound on what should have been an easy lay-up by Shook.  With her usual energy and over-the-top exuberance, Jones chased it to the sidelines, hurdled the bench seats, and ended up coming to the stop at the behest of a walkway railing to her midriff.  After the flip over the railing and landing in the walkway, Jones popped up as only she can and continued play. 

Here it is: Jazmine's Audition For the Tokyo Olympics gymnastics squad

 The worst part of the whole affair was that she was unable to save the possession.  All was not lost, though.  The next time down the court for the Liberty, she got a nice assist from the top of the key out to the three point line and drained it.

The 17 for Jones didn't top the scoring for the Liberty in the game, Betnijah Laney did that with 19, though it did take her 36 minutes to get to that tally.

Next up for the Liberty, the Dallas Wings come to town tomorrow night at 7pm.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We had a fun show yesterday, with four out of five on the call.  Case was up in Madison watching boats go fast and turn left.

The audio levels are a bit out of whack on this one, so if you wanted to wait for Case to do his magic in the podcast posting, it might be easier listening.

A fun discussion, on everything from traffic woes in Louisville, to basketball and trips to Tokyo, and a great quiz about coaches both here at UofL and others.

JMCA