Monday Cardinal Couple - Field Hockey, Volleyball and Women's Soccer

Field Hockey

After a good conference win against Wake Forest Friday, the Field Hockey team continued their non-conference dominance at an always dangerous Appalachian State with a 4-1 victory.

Paulie and I spoke on the radio show Saturday about how Appalachian State always is a danger in any sport they play, famously upending might power Michigan in Football a few years back.  They've also cause the Cardinal squads some challenges in Volleyball a few times over the years.

With a 9-1 start, the Cards are continuing to have a great season and continue their non-conference win streak the extends back to the end of the 2014 season.

The scoring in this one came from three Americans, a rarity for this Cardinals squad, and an Aussie.  Taylor Stone collected the first goal with assists to Stephanie Byrne and Erin McCrudden about 15 minutes into the game.  The second followed fairly quickly at just over 16 minutes in with an unassisted goal by Bethany Russ.  App State clawed one back just over 18 minutes in, but that would be all for the Mountaineers.  The second half was all Cardinals, with Nicole Woods getting on the board near the beginning of the second half, scoring about 39 minutes in with an assist to Lotta Kahlert.  The last insurance goal for the Cards came at about 50 minutes in by Shannon Sloss, with assists to Abby Grimes and Erin McCrudden.

The Cards started out slow, but gained confidence as the game went on, with Sowry commenting,

 "As the game went on, we were able to gain confidence passing the ball around and creating more opportunities."  After a great game against Wake Forest, where Coach Sowry wasn't able to immediately discern any problems to correct, (we assume she found some rewatching game film), it was clear that she found some flaws in this game, live, to work on, "Overall I was pleased with a tough road trip, but we certainly have identified some areas that we must tidy up."

The Field Hockey squad continues their road trip Friday afternoon at Syracuse with a 3:30pm pass back before returning home Sunday October 2nd for a 1pm tilt version non-conference foe Iowa.

Volleyball

A bit of a rough weekend for the wide-net squad, with one of the craziest conference road trips you can have.  After the visit to the rebuilding, but showing success in the process, Notre Dame squad, the Cardinals charter took them to Tallahassee to take on 15th ranked Florida State.  While the result isn't what Coach Kordes would've wanted, the Cards did show some life in this one.

Florida State takes the match 26-24, 25-18, 23-25, 25-22.  The Cards hit .159 overall, but the brightest spot in this one is the 3rd set that UofL won, where they hit .346.  Service errors are still higher than I would like to see with 10 for the match, but with seven serve receive errors for FSU, it suggests that the Cardinals' aggressive serving is having the desired effect.

Leaders for the Cards in this one are the typical krewe, the freshman phenom, Melanie McHenry had 18 kills, reliable do-everything utility player Janelle Jenkins tallied 15 (and had the highest hitting percentage for the Cards at .204).  Tess Clark is starting to find her form again, with 10 kills and .200 hitting.  Jasmine Bennett put down seven, but the strong FSU blocking took its toll there with six errors dropping her average to .067.  Rock solid Molly Sauer picked up 19 digs, while Kali Eaken is settling back into her role as starting setter with 43 assists.  The seven aces for the Cards go to Sauer and McHenry, with four and three respectively.

FSU is known for good blocking, but UofL only lost that battle at the net by two blocks, picking up eight compared to FSU's 10.

Subjectively, UofL continues to show that they have some amazing talent on this team, with several
runs of points that really showed off how well this team can play, but separated by missed opportunities and missed timing that is the hallmark of a team that hasn't had the opportunity to play together long enough to get their timing and placement down.  Given the disruption to the starting lineup that the team has suffered for essentially all of the season thus far, this is understandable, and progress is visible on this front.

The Kordes Krewe will be back in the friendly confines of the KFC Yum! Center this weekend, with Friday night and Sunday afternoon matches against Wake Forest and Duke.  First serve for Wake will be the typical 7pm Friday night, and Duke gets a 1pm start on Sunday.  Both matches will be available on the ACC Network Extra streaming platform

JMcA


Women's Soccer

Down 2-0 with 15 minutes left in the game...it looked bleak for the UofL women's Soccer team against Boston College yesterday. "Win In Lynn!" didn't look like it was going to happen.

Oops...correct that. The offense found another gear, Inger Katrine Bjerke "got her head" into the game when it was most needed and the Cards got the perfect opportunity in the second overtime to down B.C. 3-2

Jill Vetere connected first on a penalty kick to get Louisville on the board in the 74th. minute and with less than two minutes remaining Niahm Nelson sent a ball into the box that Bjerke tipped into the net with her head to provide the equalizer.

Both teams fired away in the first O.T. but nothing netted. Less than a minute into the second overtime session...freshman Callie McKinney delivered the orb right at Kaela Dickerman's foot right in front of the box and foot found ball to soar into the upper right corner for the winner.

" I saw it, couldn't believe it and just kicked it. It was the perfect pass from Callie."  Dickerman noted.

7-2-2 for this over-acheiving group of Kickin' Cards....who will face Notre Dame Saturday night in Lynn next.

paulie
xxxxx