Happy Labor Day, folks. I apologize for the late post this morning. The Cards were busy yesterday, so let's get right into it.
Field Hockey Blanks Ohio
Justine Sowry's squad followed their big win over Michigan State with another five-goal victory over a green team. This time it was the Bobcats of Ohio University, and this time the Cardinals' defense came away with a clean sheet. Louisville improved to 2-0 on the young season with the win.
The two teams played tight for the first 25 minutes of the match before Izzy Bianco and Rylie Wollerton connected for Wollerton's fourth goal of the season. After leading the squad in scoring last year, Wollerton is well on her way to setting the benchmark again this year. Like the match Friday, this goal (Bianco to Wollerton connection) came after a penalty corner shot that Bianco saw blocked away and decided to pass it off the next time. Louisville wasted no time scoring a second goal, as Gigi Edwards picked up her first goal of the season with an unassisted number one minute after the opener. Gigi's goal came after a Wollerton shot was saved.
Ohio recovered in the third to keep the Cards off the board in that quarter, but Louisville's offense was relentless. Opening the final stanza, Louisville scored early to put the game away. Bianco and Wollerton got together for Wollerton's second goal of the game and fifth of the year two minutes into the quarter. Three minutes later, Gracie Potter, architect of so many Louisville goals already, scored her first of the year on an assist from Wollerton. With just under five minutes left in the game, Lauren Masters set the final score with her second goal of the season on an assist from Tyler Everslage.
Louisville put OU under serious pressure, and their goalie responded pretty well. The Cards had 22 total shots and put 15 on target. Ohio's goalie had ten saves. Louisville took a step back in corner efficiency during this game, as they converted just one of nine. Yikes. Defensively, Ohio had only three shots. Emily Young saved the only one that was on target. Alessia Cicuto saw her first minutes of the season in the final 10 minutes of the game, but she saw no defensive action.
Louisville is back in action on Saturday in Bloomington, Indiana. They'll face Drexel at 11am on Saturday and take on IU Sunday at 12.
Volleyball Thumps Morehead State
On the podcast this week, I said that if Louisville followed the performance against Auburn with a sweep of Morehead State where all the scores were 25-21, I might be concerned. No worries though: they didn't. Louisville crushed the Eagles with a 25-13, 25-13, 25-17 victory. Dan Meske was able to play a rotated side for much of the match and still take care of business in Louisville's second matchup of the Cardinal Classic. The Cards will wrap up the event against St. Johns today at 3PM.
Perhaps Auburn was better than we gave them credit for. Either that or Louisville cleaned up a lot of issues on Saturday. Louisville hit .398 in this match and outblocked Morehead State 12-1. The Cards were led by Payton Petersen on offense, who finished with a career-high 12 kills. Cara Cresse and Chloe Chicoine followed her with nine apiece. Hannah Kenny, who I mistakenly referred to as coming in on the libero side in my Saturday write-up, led the team with four aces. Kenny is substituting defensively in the back row for Kalyssa Blackshear.
Blackshear joined Hannah Sherman near the top of the team in blocks. Sherman had two solos and four assists while Blackshear had four assists. Louisville finished with five solo blocks, as Cresse, Petersen, and Nayelis Cabello each put up their own. Cabello had five kills to go with her 34 assists and finished with two errors. I don't love to see 16 attempts from the setter (which was third on the team), and I hope that Cabello doesn't become too reliant on the dump attack.
As I mentioned, Meske got to send in plenty of other players in this one. Chicoine played only two sets and Cresse played all three sets but had just 15 attempts. Hannah Sherman did all of her blocking (and killed her only attempt) in just one set. Alanna Bankston got to play in a set and Addison Makun picked up three kills on three attempts and two assisted blocks in the middle for two sets.
Morehead State kept in close early in the first set, but Louisville was never really in any danger from this team. That's more or less what we expect from Cardinals Volleyball, though, so it's good to see after a clunky opener. Today's match closing the Cardinal Classic could get ugly. St. Johns took a set off Auburn yesterday in a 3-1 loss, but they were swept by Morehead State on Friday. Today's 3PM first serve will air on ACCNX.
Soccer Wins Tough Match Against Coastal Carolina
It was a beautiful evening for soccer yesterday, and fans that came out to Lynn were treated to a surprisingly thrilling match. Coastal Carolina was committed to not going down as badly as other recent opponents for the Cards and a stellar performance by their goalkeeper, Aris Lamanna, put Louisville fans in an uncomfortable spot. Lamanna finished the match with 10 saves, but her play disrupted more scoring opportunities than that number suggests. In the end, Louisville's pressure was too great and the Cards managed to score a pair in the second half to win 2-0.
Louisville posted its fourth clean sheet of the season last night, but the match wasn't without its scares. Erynn Floyd was forced into three saves, and one was a glove tip up onto (and over) the crossbar. Floyd was class yesterday, in my opinion. She was decisive on the ball and didn't give up opportunities that she didn't need to. Coastal put on the full-court press late in the second half before Louisville was able to score their second and Floyd is a big reason why the Cards didn't concede.
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| Swinarski lines up a cross |
The Cardinal defense was without Karsyn Cherry, as the senior captain was mysteriously in street clothes yesterday. She wasn't alone. Louisville didn't dress six players last night, and four of those were starters in the opener against Auburn. Joining Cherry on defense was Brooklynn Lee, who is still out after being stricken in the head by a ball in warmups against Vanderbilt two weeks ago. Fina Davy is still out after turning up with a boot last Sunday, but the boot has disappeared, which is encouraging. The final starter missing is Nicole Jodoin, who may have taken a knock on the head against USC Upstate on Thursday. Jodoin's absence was definitely felt in the first half, as Louisville seemed lack direction in the middle of the field on attack. The other two players sidelined were freshmen Taylor Wilson and Ashlyn Huie. Wilson has not played yet this season and Huie has 14 minutes in one match.
With a slightly shorter bench, and a somewhat surprisingly close match, Louisville was forced into playing some significant minutes. In addition to a complete game from Floyd, which is largely expected, Louisville had five 90 minute warriors on the field last night. All four defenders played 90 minutes, and they were joined by AG Gibson, who filled various roles on the pitch last night. Gibson, by the way, picked up a yellow card in the 14th minute of the match, so earning the full 90 minutes after that showed a lot of trust in the sophomore from Karen Ferguson-Dayes. That's especially true as the game got chippier as it carried on. Both teams finished seven fouls, but it probably could have been double that number.
After a first half in which Louisville peppered the Coastal defense, I remarked that the Cards could lead 3-4 to nothing without the play of Lamanna in goal. That was a bit in spite of themselves, since they did seem a bit listless up front. At one point Mackenzie Geigle was playing in the center of the field directly in front of AG Gibson? It was unusual and no one seemed particularly comfortable. The Cards finished with nine shots in the first half and six were on target. In retrospect, it wasn't a great situation for the Cards entering the locker room. Even though Coastal had just two shots and one on target, keeping Louisville off the board meant that it was all to play for in the second half.
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| Yesterday's goalscorers Morris (l) and Geigle (r) |
Fortunately, Louisville put their stamp on the game early in the second half. Taylor Morris got to start the second half for Geigle after having been subbed on in the first, and she and Gibson connected on a well crafted play through the box to the right side. With the keeper working to her left, Morris had plenty of room on the wide side of the goal and was able to find the side netting to give the Cards the lead. That came in the 51st minute and took a bit of pressure off since the game was no longer tied. Coastal did begin to apply more and more offensive pressure as the game wore on though, and they finished with six shots in the second half, forcing two more saves from Floyd.
Louisville was a bit on the back foot in the latter portions of the second half, but a late goal more or less put the game on ice. A Liza Suydam shot up top was saved over the goal by Lamanna in the 82nd minute, setting up Louisville's fifth corner of the match (they took six overall). Amelia Swinarski stepped up to take it as she is left-footed and can bring an inswinging ball into the box. Geigle's head found the ball on it's way down and although it was tipped by Lamanna to slow it down, a Coastal defender was unable to pull it from over the line, her header managing only to bury the ball deeper into the net. (In all honesty, it was impossible to tell from my angle if the ball was already in or if it was technically an own goal, but it was going in without the defender's intervention anyway). That goal took some of the wind out of CCU's sails, and the Chanticleers didn't get another shot for the remaining eight minutes.
I don't think Louisville expected quite such a significant fight from the Chants in this one, but, at the end of the day, they'll take a clean sheet and their fourth straight win. The Cards move to 5-1 and have surpassed last season's goal total with 12 games left to play. Louisville has two more games in this homestand before they get conference play started with a bang against FSU in Tallahassee next Thursday. Before that, they'll face Kent State (Thursday) and Dayton (Sunday) at Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium.
Until next time, Go Cards!
