Saturday Cardinal Couple - Celebrating Friday Success - Softball Tennis and More

It's the weekend, and the Cardinal sports teams are off to a good start.

We bring you the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports, but as always, we're fans of all the different sports around UofL, so one quick note on the guys' side of things.  Baseball opened their season down south in Clearwater Florida with a win over Alabama state, with Maryland on tap for an afternoon matchup today in Clearwater, FL.  You can check out their action locally on 93.9 FM.  You won't hear the dulcett tones of Sean Moth as he's still back here in Louisville to do PA work for the Men's Basketball game this afternoon, but I'm sure they'll have a fine substitute for him providing the coverage.

Swimming and Diving competed in the ACC Championships all week and ended up with a 3rd place finish the overall competition.  A fine finish, with some excellent individual performances within that.  The successes of our Swimming and Diving team are exciting to see.

To yesterday's action, though!

Tennis

The tennis team headed east to West Virginia to take on the Thundering Herd of Marshall.  The
Cardinals got the job done against a good Marshall team, but it was a battle, to be sure.  The Cards started off by getting the doubles point, but had to come back to do it.  The Herd got the win on the first court, but UofL was able to put up a pair of 6-4 wins on the other two to take the point.

The singles matches weren't any less dramatic.  Most of them went the full 3 sets, and one of the 2 set matches ended up in Louisville's column 7-6, 7-5.  Overall the singles points were evenly split between Marshall and Louisville, but the doubles point gave Louisville the overall win 4-3.  This one went down to the wire as an overall competition, and on most of the individual courts in play.

This is a good win for the Cards, against an NCAA Tournament calibre team.

Softball

Softball continued their season opening road-trip by heading to North Carolina, where I'm not sure if it was any warmer there than it was here in Louisville.  It turns out Softball and Baseball probably could've had their season opening at home and been ok this year, but of course, that can never be predicted when the schedules are being made, so we'll have to deal with the diamond Cards being on the road this week and next, before Ulmer sees any action this year.

A great day for Pearsall's players, they started the day with a fairly easy 7-0 victory over Ohio State in 5 innings.  The scoring did come late in the game for the Cards, but boy did it come big when it did.  Scoreless through 3, Lillie Goetz got the scoring started by plunking the scoreboard in left field.  If you've ever met Lillie, you probably wouldn't expect her to be a real power hitter as she's one of the smaller players on the team, but this isn't her first career homer, so she's got the power to do it.  Some small ball earned another couple of points for the Cards with Sidney Melton reaching on an error and scoring The Poof, Nicole Pufahl.  Jordan McNary reached safely on an infield hit, and scored fellow speedster Mo Meyer.  The scoring wasn't done, though.  Maryssa Becker walked to fill up the bases again, and then Megan Hensley ripped one to left field to score everybody to finish off the scoring in the 4th with 7 on the board.

A couple of more scores in the 5th with mostly small ball put the game into run-rule territory. Goetz doubled to set it all up and eventually made it home on a groundout by pinch-hitting freshman Shelby Graybill.  Jordan McNary's RBI then brought Blaire Bass home who had gotten on base with a walk earlier.  The Cards were able to prevent any scoring by the Buckeyes in the game, and most importantly in the bottom of the 5th so the game ended after 5 on the run-rule.

The second game of the day was a much more challenging matchup, with the Purdue Boilermaker's comprising the other half of the Big-10 contingent at the ACC/Big-10 Challenge.

Purdue got out to an early 3-0 lead, and the Cards couldn't generate any offense until the 6th inning, with homeruns by Ashley Nikolao and Jenna Jordan.  Nikolao's was a solo shot, the first in her career, but Maryssa Becker drew a walk which was followed up by a solid Megan Hensley double to set up Jordan's 3 run homer.  Both Becker and Hensley were replaced by pinch runners when they reached - Celene Funke, and Michala Riggle respectively.  Their base-running skills wouldn't be needed, however, as they both got to trot home when Jenna Jordan took her first career homer over the left field fence.  That gave Louisville the 4-3 lead after 6 with more to come.

Purdue scored a pair in the top of the 7th, which really put the pressure on the Cards.  Needing 1 to tie and a pair to win, Sidney Melton reached on a hit, advanced on a Jordan McNary groundout.  Maryssa Becker walked...again...her 3rd of the game and 6th of the day...it's like the opposing pitchers are scared of her.  Megan Hensley got a 2-out hit to bring Melton and Becker home, and win the game 6-5.

Purdue is up to bat again today at 4pm, with another game against Ohio State on deck for Sunday at 10am.  Live stats and twitter feeds are the best you're going to do for these.

Team Jordan or Team Sid/Syd/Szyd

Our buddy Jose at USF indicates he can't choose between the
two entities. 

Really, though, the most important question we have to tangle with here at Cardinal Couple...

Are you Team Jordan or Team Sid/Syd/Szyd?  I, clearly, am Team Sid/Syd/Szyd, while Paulie is apparently Team Jordan.

Team Sid/Syz/Szyd has longtime members Allison "Mike" Szydlowski, and Sidney Melton, along with newcomer freshman pitcher Sydney Warinner.  Team Jordan, on the other hand, sports Jordan McNary, Jordan Vorbrink, and Jenna Jordan.

Team Sid/Syd/Szyd joined forces yesterday to catch a potential base stealer at 2nd, with Warinner pitching to Mike behind the plate who threw the pickoff to the shortstop Melton.  The Jordans have a speedster slapper in Jordan McNary, they have their own catcher in Jenna Jordan who did get a 3-run homer yesterday, along with an outfielder in Jordan Vorbrink.

Sound off in the comments, and if you pick Team Jordan, as great as they are, you're obviously wrong.

Scheduling

Gettin' hot in here, now...

Also in action today, Lacrosse meets their first ranked opponent of the year in Denver, Baseball continues their opening weekend in Clearwater, FL, and Men's Basketball hosts Virginia Tech.  The last one is on the ACC Network Extra and locally on WAVE.

Also, don't forget to check out the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour at 11am today on Crescent Hill Radio.  We're without Case today, but we have an excellent guest joining us in Jared Anderson.  Jared has been on the show before and is a fantastic supporter of all UofL sports.  Since he has been on the show last, he has taken the helm of River City Cards as editor-in-chief. A recent UofL graduate, Jared is one of the "young guns" of internet sports. We like that.

Check us out on Crescent Hill Radio where we try to do a show without any percussion section.  It'll be a challenge, but clap along and I think we can get through it.

-- JMcA