UofL Women's Golf Records Fourth Place finish -- Wednesday Cardinal Couple

 CARDS SWINGERS PLACE FOURTH IN NICHOLASVILLE

TCU grabs the UK sponsored Bettie Lou Evans Tournament

The days of Lauren Hartlage may be over for Louisville women's golf, but the 2024 version of the Whitney Young coached squad is dong quite well for themselves. 

The "Chip and Putt" Cards finished fourth in the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational recently...tweny  strokes back of tournament winner TCU and just nine strokes behind in-state rival UK.

The tournament is named after Bettie Lou Evans, who coached the UK Wildcat women's golf squad from 1979-2001 and passed away in 2023. 

Thienna Huynh

For the Cards, Thienna Huynh led the way. She was four over par for three days with a 220. It was good for a 10th place finish overall. Closely behind her was Carmen Griffiths, who finished with a 221 for 54 holes. Millie Cottrell and Bailey Burkett finshed with a 224 for Louisville. 

The squad prepares for the Cardinal Cup, which begins on friday. The event will be held at it's traditional home course, the UofL Golf Club out in Simpsonville, KY. 

Carmen Griffiths

paulie

Volleyball Rankings Shakeup -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Wild Start to Rankings Changes

Upsets and surprise results have been plentiful in the first couple weeks of the season. Last week, we saw Louisville volleyball go on the road to then-#7 Penn State and get swept. They responded by winning nine of 10 sets in the NKU Invitational. Louisville was not the only team scratching their head at a loss last week.

Former #1 Texas is 2-2 on the season and recently lost in five sets to Miami. The Longhorns fell to #6 in the latest poll.

Nebraska was #2 before going on the road to get swept by unranked SMU. The Cornhuskers are 5-1 but dropped down to #5.

Pitt was #3 but has remained undefeated onto a 4-0 start to the year. They did sweep a ranked Oregon team recently and have propelled themselves to #1.

Louisville was at #4 last week and stayed put in that spot. The wins against Wisconsin and Tennessee to open the season seem to be helping the Cards' resume right now.

Stanford was ranked #5 last week but shot up to #2 thanks to a 4-0 start. They have wins over ranked/RV Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Marquette.

Other teams off to surprising starts are #8 Wisconsin (2-3 record), #16 Tennessee (2-2), #19 Minnesota (1-3), and #21 Florida State (4-1). The Seminoles fell to Auburn over the weekend.

The ACC has plenty of teams in the Top 25 right now: #1 Pitt, #2 Stanford, #4 Louisville, #15 Georgia Tech, #20 Miami, and #21 Florida State. New ACC foe SMU is in the receiving votes category.

Other Louisville opponents on the schedule this year in the rankings include #3 Penn State, #5 Nebraska, #8 Wisconsin, #9 Creighton, and #10 Kentucky.

#1 Pitt

#2 Stanford

#3 Penn State

#4 Louisville

#5 Nebraska

#6 Texas

#7 Purdue

#8 Wisconsin

#9 Creighton

#10 Kentucky

----

#15 Georgia Tech

#16 Tennessee

#20 Miami

#21 Florida State

Louisville returns to action this coming weekend against Northern Iowa on Saturday and Creighton on Sunday.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

CARDS Sunday Success --- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 CARDS WIN TWO SUNDAY WITH VOLLEYBALL, FIELD HOCKEY WINS -- FALL TO DAYTON IN WSOC

Three UofL women's sports squads were in action Sunday..two of them on Floyd Street and one in Highland Heights, KY. field Hockey and Volleyball recorded wins, but Louisville women's soccer fell to their old nemesis Dayton in Lynn Stadium. Recaps below.

FIELD HOCKEY

Louisville Field Hockey got a 3-1 win over Penn Sunday afternoon at Trager Stadium, scoring three straight goals, including two in the fourth quarter, to go to 2-2 on the season 

The Quakers scored first in the contest, three minutes into the second quarter when Julia Ryan connected. The Cards were able to even it up with about three minutes left in the second quarter, when Louisville was awarded a penalty stroke and Aimee Plumb converted for UofL. The teams went to the halftime locker room tied at 1-1

After a scoreless third quarter, Louisville tallied a score with four minutes gone in the final period when Chloe Cuzzupe rebounded a blocked Chloe Plumb attempt and sent it back past the goalkeeper into the net. to give the Cards the lead for good at 2-1. Three minutes after that, Rylie Wollerton tipped an Aimee Plumb shot on goal into the end ffor an insurance goal for the Cards. 

#7 UofL had a 10-2 shots on goal advantge in the contest and had none penalty corner attempts, while the Quaker s did not have one.  Coach Sowry used both Em Young and Brandelynn Heinbaugh in goal. 

It was the Cards fourth all-time win over Penn and has never lost to the Quakers. 

Our Jared Anderson caught up with head coach Justine Sowry and Chloe Cuzzuppe for post game comments: 

Chloe Cuzzupe

Justine Sowry

VOLLEYBALL 

Louisville Volleyball (5-1) played their third match in three days up in Highland Heights, KY and faced NKU to end their visit there. The Cards got off to a rollicking start against the Norse,  and got the three gane sweep, but give Northern Kentucky credit for making it interesting in the third set. 

SET 1

Louisville and the Norse played fairly close in the beginning of the first set, UofL was able to forge out to an 11-7 lead, and then...suddently, it clicked for the Cards. UofL went on a 10-2 run to tale a 21-9 lead. The Norse could not stop the UofL attack and the Cards went 4-2 the rest of the set for the 25-11 opneing set win. Charitie Luper had three kills for UofL in the first set. 

SET 2 

It was all Cards in the second set. UofL had little trouble establishng an 11-7 lead, and then slammed the door completely shut on NKU with a 10-1 run for a 21-8 advantage. Louisville then won the final four points for the 25-8 shellacking.   

SET 3

It look like the Cards weren't going to have much trouble in the final set, jumpng out to a commanding 15-11 lead, but NKU decided to make a match of it and battled back to make it 16-14. They drew within one at 20-19, and then tied the set at 24-24..but the Cards previled for the final two points and took the final set and the  match 26-24. 

WOMEN'S SOCCER

Not all the day's activities went the way of the red and black, though. The Dayton WSOC squad came into the Lynn Stadium on campus Sunday evening, and, the Flyers continued their mastery over Louisville women's soccer, eking out a 1-0 win over Karen Ferguson Dayes' Cards.

Dayton struck early for the lone score in the match...Jenna Hallbeck tracked down a pass in front of the Louisville goal and tapped a kick past Cards goalkeeper Kiley Kimball for the lone score of the match, just three minutes into action.

Louisville had a 10-7 shot edge on the visitors, but each team managed only two shots on goal, Credit Dayton goalie Batoul Reda with two fine saves on those Cardinals goal attempts .

Louisville takes their first loss of the season and is now 5-1-2. The Cards now go into ACC Conference play and will travel to Pittsburgh to face the Panthers Saturday..

(PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON) 

paulie

A Busy Sunday - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball

 

Greetings from northern Kentucky where the VolleyCards are in the midst of the fourth year of a four team home, home, home, and home, setup with South Dakota, Missouri, and Northern Kentucky.

In this final year, it's the Norse's turn to host.  The Cards lost their first set of the four year set of matches on Friday, but made South Dakota pay for it in the fourth set.

Yesterday, Louisville returned to form with a sweep of Missouri, though that conclusion was not foregone.  The Cards took the sets 25-20, 25-21, 25-18.

In the first set, the teams mostly traded points before the Cards started pulling ahead later in the set for the 25-20 win.

 

The second set, however, saw UofL digging a bit of a deficit, being down by 15-9 about midway through.  Subjectively, the team just wasn't playing clean crisp ball, particularly struggling in serve receive.  Later in the set, they started getting cleaner serve receptions and turned the score back to their favor eventually getting the win.

The third set again was a back and forth affair at the beginning, but the late set play ended up being a set of runs as the Cards pulled ahead on an 8-3 stretch.  Missouri responded with a small run, and after a sideline chat called by DBK, the Cards finished out the set in solid fashion.

I mentioned the serve receive struggles above, and subjectively I do feel like this is the biggest weakness of the team at the moment.  With the team playing the 6-2 offense, which some of us have started to call a 6-3 in honor of Elena Scott's bonus setting presence on the court, the coaching staff has to conserve their substitutions to make sure they don't run out (15 are allowed per set).  That means we're seeing fewer defensive specialists, such as Kamden Schrand, Jessica Drapp, Molly Urban, and Sam Untied, subbing in for hitters as they rotate to the back row.

The coaching staff did bring Kamden Schrand in to replace Anna DeBeer in the back row late in one of the sets, which helped some with serve receive.

The Cards will be back in action at Regent's Hall on the campus of NKU today at 2pm.  Streaming is available only on ESPN+.

The match against NKU really shouldn't be terribly competitive, and let's hope that statement doesn't come back to bite me.  The Norse can be a scrappy team, but ultimately they're not generally playing at the level we are.

Another Personal Note

The volleyball team bussed out to the home of Kamden Schrand's father and step-mother.  They hosted, with support of Kamden's mother and step-father, and Jessica Drapps parents, the team, and other family members in northern KY for the weekend for a meal and socializing.  You may have seen a picture of the team on social media yesterday evening gathering around a lighted "Go Cards" sign.  That was taken on the Schrand's backyard basketball/pickleball court.

They very graciously extended an invitation to me as well, so I got to enjoy about as perfect of weather as you could possibly ask for hanging out with the team, coaching staff, and various player's families.  That included the whole crowd gathering around one of the TV's in the Schrand's basement to watch the ending of the volleyball match where the ACC's Miami Hurricanes upset top-ranked (but not for long) Texas.  A good time was had by all, and I am truly appreciative of the inclusion by the Schrand's and others.

Also In Action Today

Field Hockey

Field Hockey is back in the friendly confines of Trager Stadium and will be hosting Penn at 1:30pm.

Sowry's squad is off to a little bit of a rough start, after the loss Friday to Princeton, and on top of the double-overtime loss to Maryland last week, they find themselves at 1-2.  It's still very early in the season, of course, but this Field Hocke.y program doesn't often find itself with a below .500 record, so they've got some work to do.

Streaming is on ACC Network Extra, so if you're on DirecTV, you'll need to make some alternate arrangements if you want to see this one.  Of course, it's going to be a beautiful day, so if you're in the Louisville area, the alternate arrangements could be going out to Trager to enjoy it in person.

Golf

Golf is competing in the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational in Lexington, hosted by UK.  No video coverage for this seems to be available.

Soccer

Soccer will finish off the weekend, also on Floyd Street, hosting Dayton at 7pm in Lynn Stadium on campus.

Again, video coverage on ACC Network Extra, like Field Hockey, those alternate arrangements could be going to the game in person as it is similarly free to attend.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The CCRHP crew is all over the place this weekend, and I stupidly forgot to grab my headset on the way out of the door to boot, so no CCRHP this week.

We should be back at it next week.

What would have been my final thoughts:  If you're not paying attention to the overall volleyball scene, beyond just the matches that UofL is playing in, you should check it out.  It is absolute chaos at the top of the rankings.  Of course, early season rankings are always a bit fluid, but nearly every top team has taken at least one big upset.  Our upset loss to Penn State (4 vs 7) looks downright tame by comparison.  Texas is sitting at 2-2, Wisconsin started out 0-3 (and the two wins they've accumulated since then were fierce five set battles), Nebraska lost to new ACC entrant SMU.  About the only teams who have escaped unscathed so far have been Stanford and Pitt.  Neither have faced the strongest schedule so far, though they both have a win over what are nominally considered pretty good teams.  It's pretty likely that one of them will be the number one ranked team when the new poll is released tomorrow afternoon.  Chaos reigns.

-- 

JMcA

Volleyball and FH Split Results -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Bounces Back with 3-1 Win 

After a less than stellar performance earlier in the week, Louisville volleyball recovered yesterday afternoon with a 3-1 win over South Dakota. The Cards hit .412 for the match, a stark improvement over the 0.091 they posted Tuesday night against Penn State. Louisville bookended this match with a .579 in the first game and a .632 in the fourth. They had no errors in that last game, absolutely smoking the Coyotes 25-6. 

Louisville got off to a quick start, winning the first game 25-14 and the second 25-17. The Cards led wire-to-wire in both, although a 6-1 run in the first gave the Coyotes a chance at 12-10 and 4-0 run in the second made it 13-11. In both cases, Louisville turned on the jets and left South Dakota behind. The .579 first game was overpowering when compared to SD's 0.043. The second game was Louisville's lowest hitting of the match at .281, but it was still more than enough compared to the 0.074 on the other side of the tape. 

The third game, like all the others, saw Louisville out hit South Dakota. The Cards hit .313, but they had their highest number of errors at six. They also committed three of their nine service errors and gave up two of four aces to South Dakota in the game. To their credit, the Coyotes had their best hitting game at .290, but Louisville still led at 12-7 and 17-15, and they were able to tie it at 23 before a kill and an ace by SD prevented the sweep. 

As I already told you, Louisville came back from the lost game in a big way. The Cards won the first seven points. After a service error gave them the ball back at 8-1, they won the next seven points as well. The only place the Cards weren't absolutely feeling it in the fourth game was the service line. Three of South Dakota's six points came on service errors. That said, Louisville did have three aces in the game to even it out. The Cards only had four of their 14 blocks in the fourth, but those contributed to a -0.136 hitting percentage for the Coyotes in that game. Louisville finished with 12 kills and no errors. 

Funny numbers atop the hitting percentages for Louisville yesterday. Elle Glock led the team with a 1.000 by going 1-1. Elena Scott was tied for third as she picked up a .500 by going 1-2. Officially leading the way among hitters was Charitie Luper, who hit a monster .611 with 12 kills and one error on 18 attempts. Hannah Sherman hit .500 on 14 attempts , Reese Robins hit .462 on 13, Sofia Maldonado Diaz hit .429 on 14, and Anna DeBeer hit .391 on 23 attempts. All in all, a pretty good afternoon.

It was blocking by committee, with just five of Louisville's 14 blocks coming as solo. PK and Sherman each had a pair, and DeBeer picked up the fifth. PK had three block assists as well, but Sherman stole the show there by getting in on six. Robins assisted on four blocks. DeBeer was hot and cold at the serving line, leading the team in aces (4) and errors (3). You don't need me to tell you who led the team in digs, but I will anyway: Scott had 14 while DeBeer finished with 5. 

After a match in which she was effectively benched, this was a great rebound outing from Anna DeBeer, despite some of the negatives. We'll look for her to continue to get back to her dominant full rotation as the season goes on, but it will also be good for her to recognize the incredible team around her. She's capable of carrying the load, but she doesn't need to put it all on her own shoulders.

Interestingly, Cara Cresse wasn't in the lineup this match. We'll see if she returns today when the Cards take on Missouri at 2PM. As NKU are the hosts, the match will be carried on ESPN+. 

Field Hockey Drops Home Opener

Louisville's often prominent offense continues to hide behind the scenes against quality competition as the field hockey squad fell to 1-2 on the early season with a 1-0 loss to #15 Princeton yesterday afternoon. Previously scheduled for 4PM, the game was moved up to a 1PM start to avoid impending storms. They managed to miss the weather, but the Cards may have needed a bit more of a wake-up call with the earlier start (which was officially 1:30). 

An Aimee scored the only goal of the match. Unfortunately for Louisville, her last name wasn't Plumb. Princeton's Aimee Jungfer scored with just under a minute remaining in the third quarter to ultimately set the final score. Louisville's Aimee Plumb had three of the Cards' eight shots, but none were on frame. Louisville finished with just one shot on frame, despite five penalty corners. Princeton also took five corners and put six of eleven shots on target. 

There isn't much to say about this one. The Cards didn't have much for the Tigers. In fact, after the goal, Louisville's offensive production actually decreased. They had no penalty corners in the fourth quarter and only managed one shot in that time. Meanwhile, Princeton had no plans to park the bus. They took five shots in the fourth quarter, putting three on target, and they took two of their penalty corners in the fourth. 

After three matches, Louisville has scored only four goals, and three of those came in one match. It's not the offensive output we're used to seeing, and we'll hope for more in the matches to come. A positive to take away from this one may be that Princeton was potentially underrated. The Tigers were ranked fifteenth, but yesterday's match was their season opener. Perhaps they're better than others expected. Perhaps Louisville isn't quite as good as some people hoped. It's probably somewhere in the middle. 

The Cards will look to get back on track Sunday when they take on Penn at 1:30PM on ACC Network Extra. It should be a beautiful day, so head on down to Trager to show your support if you're so inclined. 

No Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

With the hosts scattered to the wind this week, we'll have to take the day off. Jeff probably didn't want to recount the Penn State debacle anyway, but I wouldn't have minded eating a bit of crow about soccer's early season returns. The show should return next week, but you'll still be without me. Stay tuned for a final determination later in the week. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

WSOC 2-0 win over UT Martin -- FH Schedule Change -- and VB Gameday -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL

Dear readers, Happy Friday and thanks for coming back for another recap of the joy and excitement of UofL Women’s athletics. Fall sports are in full swing and we’ve got a boatload to cover so lets jump right in.


WSOC

UofL   2  -    UT Martin   0

Photos: Jared Anderson

Louisville remains unbeaten with the win on Thursday night to move to 5-0-2 on the season (hehe.. shoutout 502!)  It was a nice night for some women's soccer over at Lynn Stadium.  Jared made it out there to cover the action.  

About 20 minutes into the match, the Cardinals had 5 shots, none really on goal but the offense did spend a good amount of time on the attack.   The Skyhawks struggled to find any momentum offensively and finished the night with a single shot attempt.

As the clock wound down in the first half, the Cardinals' Gianna Angelillo found the back of the net to score just before the break and put the Cards up 1-0 in the 44th minute.  It was her first goal of the season 

Not much longer after action returned to the pitch in the second half did the Cardinals put another goal on the board/ Karsyn Cherry connected in the 48th minute.  It was Cherry's 5th goal of the season, a team best.  

Erynn Floyd was in the net for the majority of the contest, more than 63 minutes on the night.  Kailey Kimball spent the rest of the 26 minutes in the net but neither had much work to do back there.   

UP NEXT

Dayton comes to town for a Sunday night match at 7pm and can be viewed on the ACC Network Extra.  

Volleyball

The Cards are back in action Friday at 3pm on ESPN+

South Dakota is 2-0 on the season, sweeping their two opponents Fordham and AirForce. As a team, the Coyotes are hitting .302% with 17 Kills per set and allowing opponents a .140 hitting percentage and 10 kills a set. They’re also averaging about 14 service errors per match and defensively, 18 digs per set.

The Cardinals are coming off a significant loss midweek vs Penn St and looking to bounce back with a no doubt victory.  

Field Hockey

The match between Cards and the Tigers moved up into the afternoon

Friday at 1pm. North Carolina and Penn moved to 11 a.m at Trager....all because of the threat of inclement weather. 

The Cards are 1-1 after beating American University this past weekend 3-1.

About Princeton

15 returnees from last year’s team, seven freshmen, one returnee from the 2022 team (who happened to play in the Summer Olympics this year). 

Beth Yeager was a first-team All-American and the Ivy League’s Offensive Player of the Year in each of her first two seasons before taking the 2023-24 academic year off from Princeton to compete with the United States national team in Olympic qualifying and then the Olympic Games, where she started every game for the USA. Yeager enters her junior year with 29 goals and 15 assists in 33 career games.

As Always, 
Go Cards!

~Daryl 

Soccer Welcomes UT Martin -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Play Second Straight at Home

Louisville women's soccer remains at home tonight with a match against UT Martin. The Cards and Skyhawks are scheduled for a 7:30pm ET kickoff time and will be aired on ACCNX, streaming only.

In their most recent outing, Louisville defeated Evansville 3-0 to improve to 4-0-2. UofL has scored 17 goals in their first six matches and have won all matches where they scored two or more goals. Louisville ranks near the top in the country in several categories including goal differential, total goals scored, total assists, and goals per match.

Senior Brooke Dardano leads the country with six assists, many of those coming off a set pieces followed by a Karsyn Cherry finish. Cherry and Mackenzie Geigle each have scored four goals.

UT Martin enters the match 1-2-2. They recently lost to Murray State 6-1. The Skyhawks have been outscored 9-4 including being shut out in their first two regulation matches. Outside of their match against Murray State, UT Martin has not allowed more than one goal per outing. Four players have scored a goal for the Skyhawks and two players have split time in goal.

Louisville leads the all-time series 2-1, but have not played since 2000. In that match, Karen Ferguson-Dayes earned her first win as head coach of the Cards.

Cardinal Couple plans to have representation at the match.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

PENN STATE BLANKS LOUSVILLE VOLLEYBALL -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 LIONS DEVOUR CARDS IN STRAIGHT SETS 

Maybe we can put this one in the "I did not expect that to happen" category. It certainly was a surprise to Cardinals fans, and the squad...as Louisville Volleyball visited Penn State last night and left with a defeat -- in straight set -- in women's college volleyball last nght. 25-15, 25-19, 25-13 was the final set results, in what appears to be not just a defeat, but a rout. A top ten showdown and the Cards got shot down. 

The first set was fairly close early. The Cards and Nittany Lions were tied at 6-6 and Louisville was still fairly close after a Charite Luper point to make it 13-10 P.S.U. Then, the wheels fell off. Penn State went on a 6-1 run to grab a 19-11 lead. PSU's Quinn Nerger's three straight serving successes had Louisville on the ropes. The Cards would not get any closer than eight the rest of the set. 

In set two,  Louisville did grab an early 4-2 lead, after a Penn State servcie error, but the home squad rallied from a 7-4 deficit to tie the conrest at 7-7. The Cards made a contest of the second set for a good while, the score was16-16 at one point, but four straight Penn State points made it 20-16. That turned into a 24-19 lead and the Cards got handed their second loss when Izzy Starck had a set-ending kill, the Nittany Lions freshman setter that was playing like a fifth year veteran..

Louisville (now 2-1) ran into a Penn State squad that wanted to make a statement in the third set...and they did.  Louisville was able to stay close early, but at 9-8, the Nittany Lions (3-0) roared and all of a sudden, it was 12-8 and Louisville needed a timeout. 

The Cards simply got worse the longer the set went. 14-10 became 18-12 and Lousville looked like a defeated squad. Or, as one Cardinals fan put it.."Penn State played out of their minds and we played like crap."  

Louisville went into  the match ranked as the #4 team in the AVCA poll, Penn State...(now 3-0) was listed as the #7 squad by AVCA.  It looked like the reverse (or worse)  Tuesday nght. The Louisville team that romped Tennessee simply did not play well up north. Just when you thought Pitt was the pnly team to worry about in Pennsylvana...guess who showed up on the floor?  A hungry bunch of lions. 

Louisville heads to northern Kentucky for a weekend of matches starting with South Dakota Friday in a tournament hosted by Northern Kentucky University.

paulie

Volleyball Visits Penn State -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volley Cards Hit Road for Top 10 Match-Up

In a quick turnaround, #6 Louisville volleyball hits the road to take on #7 Penn State. The Cards are fresh off a sweep over #15 Tennessee. Prior to that, Louisville took down #3 Wisconsin 3-1.

Penn State is also off to a 2-0 start to the year. They opened up the season with a 3-1 win at Tennessee and followed it up by sweeping Temple. Tonight's match will be the home opener for the Nittany Lions.

In 2023, Penn State went 23-9 including a third place finish in the Big Ten. They fell to Wisconsin in the Sweet Sixteen but posted a 13-2 record at home.

Outside hitters Jess Mruzik and Camryn Hannah have been the top two attackers with 24 kills and 22 kills, respectively. They both have a +.400 attack percentage. Setter Izzy Starck has 69 assists. Back row defense has been by committee so far with Ava Falduto (18 digs), Izzy Starck (17 digs), and Gillian Grimes (16 digs).

Louisville is 2-7 all-time against Penn State with the most recent match being a 3-0 win in the Cards' favor last season. All other meetings came between 1982-2013.

Tonight's match is scheduled for 7:00 pm and will be aired on Big Ten Network (BTN). 

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Cards Field Hockey, Volleyball, Women's Soccer get Sunday wins -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 CARDS SWEEP SUNDAY IN WOMEN'S SPORTS

A good day for Louisville women's sports as the Cards Field Hockey, Volleyball and Women's Soccer all got wins on Sunday. Here's how it happened...

FIELD HOCKEY

The Cards Field Hockey squad was in Washington, DC to face American University and Rylie Wollerton tallied two goals in a Louisville Sunday afternoon 3-1 win over the Eagles. 

The Cards actually started this one trailing, when American got a goal with 5:34 remaining in the first quarter off their first penalty corner attempt of the season. The lead did not last long, though...as UofL roared back with a score a minute later when they drew a penalty corner, Izzy Bianco's shot was stopped by the AU goalkeeper, but Sophia Parker was there to rebound  the miss and stick it in the net. The score was Parker's second of the season. 

The two squads battled to a scoreless second quarter, each getting a shot on goal. The respective goalkeepers got stops on the attempts. 

Louisville took the lead for good with seven minutes gone in the third quarter. Rylie Wollerton collected a loose ball off a defender's stick and sent it into the net. The quarter ended with the Cards holding a 2-1 lead. 

UofL added an insurance score in the fourth quarter.  They drew a penalty corner with about ten minutes remaining in the contest and Izzy Bianco sent a shot to the right side of the goal, Wollerton reached out her stick and deflected the ball into the net. It was now 3-1..and the teams remained scoreless the rest of the contest. 

VOLLEYBALL

Next, we travel from Washington to downtown Louisville.

The VolleyCards...#6 (for now) in the nation brought in #15 Tennessee for a Sunday afternoon match downtown at the YUM! arena and a nice sized crowd was in atendance to see UofL take a three-game sweep over the Volunteers.  25-14, 25-22 and 25-20 were the scores in the sweep.

Louisville hit an impressive ,371 in the match and had seven aces and 45 kills... to go to 2-0 on the season. They got a huge effort from Sofia Maldonano-Diaz with 11 kills and Reese Robins hit .727 for the match and added eight kills, Anna DeBeer finished with nine kills for the Cards. 

The Vols could only muster .151 hitting from the hardwood and drop to 0-2 on the season. 

Louisville men's basketball coach Pat Kelsey took the first serve yesterday

(We were expecting Jared Anderson photos for VB and WSOC, but had not received them at the time of publication, We will add them when they arrive).

Note from Jared: the photos were added to the Cardinal Couple Dropbox late last night after several hours of editing from volleyball and women's soccer back-to-back.

WOMEN'S SOCCER

Finally, we end up Sunday evening at the south end of the Belknap campus 

Louisville women's soccer was in the familiar venue of Dr. Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium Sunday night for a match against the Evansville Purple Aces. The kickin' Cards booted their way to a 3-0 win. 

It was a scoreless match for the first 10 minutes or so, before UofL got their first goal...Karsyn Cherry set up MacKenzie Geigle and she did the honors in scoring the match's first goal. With 8:03 remaining in the first half, Louisville struck again, this time it was Cherry with her fourth goal of the season, aided by an assist from Brooke Dardano. The first half ended with the Cards holding the 2-0 edge and a 12-0 shots advantage over the visitors. 

Louisville recorded their final tally when Geigle picked up her second score of the game on a feed from Gianna Angelilio thirteen minutes into the second half.

The Cards go to 4-0-2 on the season and have matched the number of wins they had in 2023. Due to post-game technical issues in the press box and with StatBroadcast, we did not conduct a post-game interview with coach KFD or a player, Not sure who Case and Jared would have chosen, I would have suggested Geigle, but...oh well, there will be other chances to do these later in the season.  

 . 

Paulie