Cardinal Couple Tuesday - Its poll time!

Volleyball Poll - Week 1

After going 1-1 this weekend, with a loss to pre-season #6 Wisconsin and a win over pre-season #12 Minnesota, the first week of coaches polls are out.  Wisconsin climbed to #4 after winning both of their games in the B1G/ACC Challenge, while Minnesota dropped to 18th thanks to the loss to Louisville.  Most importantly, though, on the strength of the win over a top-20 team, Louisville makes its first appearance in the poll for the year in 24th place (tied with Oklahoma).

This is quite a jump for UofL as we weren't even listed in the "Others receiving votes" section of the pre-season poll.

This weekend is the Active Ankle Challenge at Cardinal Arena, and UofL will be facing Tennessee State, Cincinnati, and Appalachian State.  None of these opponents are at the level of Minnesota, so we're looking at a good chance of going into the next poll with a 4-1 record.

Conference standings are nearly meaningless at this point, but a quick look shows us in the 13th place (of 15 teams).

Weekly Honors

In addition to the first week coaches poll, the first conference honors were announced.  Volleyball has awards for player of the week and freshman of the week.

Louisville middle blocker Maggie DeJong gets out of the gates quickly with honors, pulling in the freshman of the week honor.

Maggie notched 11 kills against Minnesota, and an overall weekend hitting average of .567.  She hit .700 in the loss to Wisconsin.

Tess Clark is Louisville's other starting middle blocker, also a freshman, and also putting up some impressive numbers.  She hit .400 with 2 blocks in the loss to Wisconsin, and .448 with 3 blocks in the win over Minnesota.

Active Ankle Challenge

As mentioned above, the Active Ankle Challenge is this weekend, with the Cards facing Tennessee State on Friday at 10am, followed by Cincinnati at 7:30pm.  They finish off the tournament on Saturday with Appalachian State at 11am.  All three matches are at Cardinal Arena on Floyd Street.

On Tuesday the 9th, at 7pm, is the annual matchup with Kentucky.  UofL is looking to set an attendance record at the KFC Yum! Center, so tell your friends.

jeffmca