Field Hockey dominates G'Town in BIG EAST OPENER

SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE:

-Field Hockey hammers the Hoyas 6-1

-Volleyball falls to Purdue

-Where will Hammond go?

Led by Nicole Youman's four goals, the University of Louisville Field Hockey team successfully opened BIG EAST conference play with a 6-1 win over Georgetown University at Trager Stadium.

The Cards opened the scoring when Amber Thomas slapped home a pass from Tull Lim off a penalty corner for the first goal. The Cards added to the first half lead on another penalty corner play when Youman put one in the net...a follow up shot after a Lim attempt on goal was blocked.

The Cards took the 2-0 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

Louisville came out firing in the second half. Same scenario as before...Youman refiring on a blocked Lim shot to make it 3-0. Youman went net again a few minutes later with a nice drive and advance ending with a stroke past G'Town goalie Briana Pereira.

Georgetown countered a couple of minutes later..Annie Wilson slipping one by Cards' goalie Erin Conrad but Louisville got one back when Erin Schneidtmiller chased down a Lim missed shot and tapped it in to make it 5-1.

Youman got her final goal late in the contest with another impressive advance thru several Georgetown defenders that ended up with her teeing off and banging one in from the top of the circle for the 6-1 final score.

Georgetown (4-2) remains here in town for a game vs. Radford Saturday afternoon. TEAM CARDINAL gets Radford on Sunday at 2 p.m. The Cards (5-2) out shot Georgetown 24-2.

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Volleyball fell in Cardinal Arena last night to Purdue in four sets 25-21, 15-25, 25-18, 25-18 in the BIG EAST/BIG TEN Challenge.

"As a young team, we are still learning how to believe in ourselves. We need to maintain our confidence as a team." head Volleyball coach Leonid Yelin related after the match.

Louisville got 11 kills from Lola Arslanbekova and nine kills and five blocks from Gwen Rucker.

The Cards difficulty seems to center a lot around unforced errors. They also tend to allow big runs by the opponents late in matches. Last night...Purdue used late runs of 5-2 to win the first set, 10-3 in the third game and 8-3 to take the fourth set and match.

The Cards have extreme front line talent in Rucker, Arslanbekovca, Amanda Simmons, Anatasia Artemeva and Emily Juhl but couldn't solve the attack of Purdue's Ariel Turner...who had 20 kills in the match.

Doesn't get any easier for the wide net crew...they host #5 Illinois in Cardinal Arena at 7 p.m. Saturday night.

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As we write this, Sara Hammond has received two in-home visits in the past two days. Jeff Walz spent the day with her Thursday and UConn associate coach Chris Dailey did up Mt. Sterling with her Friday. Now comes decision time. Hammond had indicated she'll make up her mindand announce where she'll be spending the next four years playing hoops this weekend. A facebook entry last night from Sara revealed that she wasn't sure which way she was leaning but she's be deciding soon. Keep your fingers crossed...Cardinal women's basketball fans. This decision just may be a lot closer that a lot of us speculated.

(Pictured above, UConn associate coach Chris Dailey...who has been at UConn with Geno Auriemma for 25 years. During that entire time, her hair hasn't moved once. Even in Hurricane Emily. Below her is Gertrude G. Goat, daughter of CARDINAL COUPLE information technology specialist Billy D. Goat. She would like to play basketball for UConn...but has no opposable thumbs.)