Louisville Volleyball sweeps the Irish...Field Hockey "can't get a break" against Wake -- Saturday Cardinal Couple

ERIN FAIRS DELIVERS A "HANGING OF THE GREEN" IN SWEEP OF IRISH

Louisville Volleyball got the ACC season off to a splendid start by defeating Notre Dame in straight sets yesterday in South Bend 25-23, 25-19, 25-16. 

Hats off to Erin Fairs...who maybe got a little sentimental or fired up when seeing all the green in the Purcell Pavilion. The USF transfer had 17 kills against the Irish. The Notre Dame announcers on the internet feed seemed to think she deserved to be in the ACC. Nice call, boys...


Credit Notre Dame for playing gangbusters in the first game...hitting over .600 for most of that game and leading early. The Irish made the Cards work extra hard to get the win. Lyndsay Palmer serving seven straight to lead the rally.

After that, Louisville pretty much had things their way. The Cards were never seriously challenged in the two following contest and Aniah Philo stepped up big time on the left side for the Cards with 10 kills and serving the ball well in the third set.

Louisville improves to 7-4 with the win.

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FIELD HOCKEY DOWNED BY #8 WAKE

Whereas the Louisville Soccer team won a game Thursday where the statistics were clearly in favor of Miami, the Louisville Field Hockey team controlled the statistics sheet in last night's contest against Wake Forest but took a 2-1 loss to the visitors from Winston-Salem. 

The Cards held a 15-5 advantage in shots...12 of those shots on goal...but WFU goalie Valerie Dahlmen made 11 stops, including a huge one with less than a minute left in the game. 

The teams played 22 minutes of scoreless competition before the Deacons slipped a shot past Louisville goalie Ayeshia McFerran. 

Five minutes later, the Deacs actually scored a goal against themselves when Stephanie Byrne's shot on goal glanced off a defender's stick and past Dahlmen for Louisville's only point....which was credited to Byrne.

The first half ended 1-1 and the Cards ramped up the offense in the second half but it was WFU who got the game decider with about ten minutes of play remaining.

Louisville missed a golden opportunity to send the contest to overtime with 13 seconds left in the game when they were awarded a 1x1 penalty stroke opportunity. Elisa "Chile" Garcia's attempt practically in front of the goal was kicked away by Dahlmen and the Deacons snuck out with the win.

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TESTING...1,2...TESTING

We'll be on the air today at 11 a.m. for another questionable episode of THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR on WCHQ 100.9 FM and live on the internet as well at WWW.CRESCENTHILLRADIO.COM

A lively hour planned discussing the joy, excitement, results and happenings of UofL women's sports. We'll offer the Worldwide Quiz and drop by and chat with Donald Trump at Check's Cafe.

(OK...we're not really going to visit with Donald Trump and he's not going to be at Check's as far as we know. Maybe we'll take Worldwide there and tell everybody he's Donald Trump...) 

Still, it should be a dandy show and if the Donald knew about us...we're thinking he'd probably like to listen also. Then call Paulie a child... 

paulie