Volleyball falls in 5 games vs. Seton Hall

MONDAY @ CARDINAL COUPLE:

-Volleyball loses in 5 to the Pirates

-Women's Tennis @ Michigan State

-TEAM USA advances in World Championships Photo courtesy of ESPN

The University of Louisville Volleyball squad lost their first ever match to the Seton Hall Pirates Sunday in Cardinal Arena...falling 20-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-17, 13-15. A slow start for Louisville in the final game proved to be the deciding factor. Louisville fell victim to a 6-0 Pirate run and despite tying the match 10 all...could not pass the Pirates in the final eight serves.

Anastasia Artemeva led the way for the VolleyCards with 16 kills and 4 blocks. They ran into hot hitting Pirate slammer Sarah Osmun, though, who had a game high 21 kills.

Emily Juhl and Lola Arsanbekova led the way for Louisville in the first game with a combined 11 kills but the Cards fell behind 6-1 and never led. In game two, Louisville managed to take a 20-19 lead late but surrendered six of the last eight points to Seton Hall.

The Cards came out slow after the break and didn't gain the advantage until midway thru the contest. Reserve Tanya Lukyanenko spured a Cardinal finish with three straight points and the Cards took game three by six points. Artemeva took over in game four for Louisville with four of her kills and the Cards looked ready to win the match in the fifth game.

Louisville (6-5) leaves the friendly confines of Cardinal Arena for their next two...visiting UConn on Friday and St John's on Sunday.

**********************************************************************************************

Mark Beckham's UofL women's tennis team met with success in the Michigan State Invitational in East Lansing over the weekend. Sarah Miller and Becca Shine won the "B" flight doubles for the Cards...downing a team from Eastern Michigan 8-2. Freshman Julia Fellerhoff had a big tournament for the Cards..reaching the finals of "A" flight singles play before falling in three sets.

She and Mandy Brown teamed up for "A" flight doubles and reached the finals...losing to Akron 8-3 in the championship decider.

Amelia Harris performed well in "C" flight matches...reaching the finals before bowing out in three sets to BGSU's Nikki Chiricosta.

*********************************************************************************************

Some catching up to do here on TEAM USA in the World Championships. They won their second game easily over Senegal 108-52 on Friday and outlasted France 81-60 on Saturday. USA was 3-0 in preliminary round action and faces Canada in the quarterfinals Monday.

The France game wasn't as easy as the score would indicate. Facing a tough France defense, USA managed only three points in the opening six minutes of the game. Six costly turnovers had the Americans reeling early but a Tina Charles jumper drew USA back to a 11-10 lead near the end of the first quarter. They never trailed after that but France stayed close in the first half...down only 36-29 at the intermission.

USA pulled away in the third quarter, helped by a 7-0 run featuring Angel McCoughtry and Candace Dupree and pushed the margin to 58-41. Diana Taurasi led the American scorers with 15 points.

Geno Auriemma discussed the difficulties of World Championship play after the US win:

"The difficult thing about this tournament is that you play three in a row early and the players are tired. You really can't practice very much because they're tired and they're not going to get much better because it's only a six game format."

Angel and company face up against 2006 winner Australia after facing Canada.