Cards vs. Cats in softball today

In-state rivals UK and Louisville face off in women's softball today at 5 p.m. in Lexington. Both teams have gotten off to good starts this season and Louisville won the last meeting between the two squads...2-0 last April.

The Cards (14-5) have been led this season by hard-hitting senior catcher Melissa Roth. Her .537 batting average leads the team and she is also now the career leader in doubles for Louisville.

Senior hurler Kristen Wadwell leads a trio of Louisville pitchers that have combined for 138 strikeouts so far this season. That's a lot of slow walks back to the dugout for the opposition...

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UConn showed why they are the best in women's college basketball last night with a convincing 28 point win over West Virginia in the finals of the Big East tournament. Leading by only 6 points with 15 minutes remaining in the second half, the Huskies turned up the defensive pressure and held the Mountaineers to just 4 points the remainder of the game.

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Trivia question for the day. How many post season tournaments are there for women's basketball teams? Most people will guess two....the NCAA Tournament and the WNIT. You would be wrong, at least this year. A third post season tournament...the WBI (Women's Basketball Invitational) will select 16 teams to compete that aren't playing in the other two events. I don't know anything about the selection qualifications or decision making involved about how teams are invited to participate in this event but it would be great if Louisville were to be considered for it?

My philosophy is this. The Cards drew very well for home games this year. Over 6500 a contest. A tournament might consider that when choosing schools to play. Of course, if you have to have an above .500 record to compete...count the Cards out. We all would love to see the Louisville women play another couple of games this year...that's for sure.

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We discussed the disadvantages of high school teams that make the Sweet Sixteen having to play two games on the final day to win the event. I got a nice e-mail yesterday after we ran the article from a former women's high school coach who asked to remain anonyomous but mentioned:

"it is a incredible strain on the players, especially if they played in the second day of first round action. Going Thursday, Friday and then twice on Saturday after battling thru district and regional action to get there is ridiculous and if you don't have a deep roster then you virtually have no chance of surviving that many games. The KHSAA will never change it. The fear being that a Sunday game would draw poorly because the fans would not stay around since Sunday is usually a travel day back to their hometowns with people wanting to get back home to attend church and get ready for the next week."

Pure poppycock. If my favorite high school team made it to the finals, I guarantee I would stick around for the Sunday game and be on the phone getting people to make the drive to Bowling Green to watch. Marion County would be a ghost town if they were in a Sunday final. So would a lot of the towns out in the state...where high school basketball is still a big social event and the town rallies behind the boys and girls teams. I'm sure my priest wouldn't mind if I missed services to cheer on deserving young ladies engaged in competition.

Wake up, KHSAA and think about the health and legs of the players...A five day tournament make sense and would be attended well.

Written by Sonja
3/10/10