Saturday Wins and Sunday Games -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Lacrosse Notches 100th Program Win

After a pair of close games in the last week, the lacrosse team escaped another "Cardiac Cards" style game when they defeated Brown 13-9 yesterday afternoon in Orlando, Florida. Brown started the game fast, going up 2-1 in the first five minutes of the game. Not to be outdone, Louisville responded with a 3-0 run to go up 4-2. From there, the Cards never looked back. Brown scored just before halftime to cut the Louisville lead to one at 5-4, and brought it within one again with 20 minutes remaining at 6-5. As the men's basketball team is wont to do, though, the lacrosse team "boomed" them. The Cards scored 4 straight goals to make it 10-5 and kept the Bears at arms length from then on. Senior Hannah Koloski was the big girl on campus again yesterday as she put up 6 of Louisville's 13 goals. That brings Hannah up to 23 goals on the season in only six games, and she's scoring at a crisp 41% shot percentage. 

The Cards will return to the field when they host old rivals, Cincinnati, on Wednesday. It's a home game, but can be found on the ACC Network Extra as well. The Bearcats are a fairly new program, but they're by no means a game which can be overlooked. Tune in to see how the Cards handle the challenge.

Softball Escapes Hotel California

In what seemed like a never ending carousel of ranked matchups, Louisville softball took gut punch after gut punch before finally grabbing a win late last night to avoid the weekend 0-fer. In their first game of the day, against Cal, the Cards and Bears were scoreless in all but one inning. As the home team, Louisville was frustrated as Cal broke the game open with a 5 run top of the third inning. The Cards responded with two runs in the bottom half but left runners on second and third after a ground ball ended the inning. As it turned out, Louisville wouldn't put another runner on base until the bottom of the seventh inning. With the game on the line, a single and an error put two on for the Cards with two outs, but a foul ball flyout ended the threat and the game. I talked yesterday about bad losses, and, although you'd eventually like to win some games against ranked teams, a three run loss to a top 25 team because of one bad inning is nothing to hang your head about.

Louisville played in the nightcap to end their weekend when they took on Cal State Fullerton starting at 10:30 Eastern. As I worked through a school project, I kept up with this one on Twitter and was happy to see things going the Cards' way. The late game pitted two 7-6 teams (Louisville started 7-1 before the rough 5 game skid) against one another, both hoping to stay above .500. Fullerton struck first with a run in the top of second, which was immediately answered by the Cards in the bottom half. The Titans got the run back in the top of the third and held onto it for a couple of innings before a Louisville got three runs, all unearned, in the bottom of the fifth inning. Unearned runs are cheap ones, but they can win or lose you games, so we'll take what we can get. Maryssa Becker was called on to finish the game from there and she earned her first save of the season.

Getting out of the weekend with even one win and avoiding a six game losing streak cannot be overstated. Louisville opens at home next weekend and will remain in the friendly confines of Ulmer Stadium for the next 14 games. They'll host two tournaments, a single game with Wisconsin, then their first series of conference play against Pittsburgh before leaving town. There's plenty of time to catch some softball on the corner of Floyd and Brandeis so head on down if the weather is nice, or even if it's not if you're into that sort of thing.

WBB Closes Regular Season at Wake Forest

The Louisville women's basketball team will play for a chance at a double bye in the ACC tournament today when they take on Wake Forest. They'll need some help with an NC State loss, but the fourth seed is in reach, nonetheless. Before they can look ahead to the tournament looming this weekend, though, they'll need to take care of business in Winston-Salem. Wake Forest is barely above .500 on the season and only sit at 6-9 in conference, but their only win in the last five games came against the Wolfpack. Road games are always a challenge and shouldn't be taken lightly. Today will be only Louisville's third ever meeting with Wake and they'll look to continue owning the series with a win today. The game tips at 2PM and can be found on ACC Network Extra

MBB Looks to Bounce Back Against Syracuse

The men have a game of their own at 2PM today in the friendly confines of the KFC Yum! Center. After staving off multiple comebacks by the Orange during an overtime win in the Carrier Dome just two weeks ago, Louisville will have the benefit of their home crowd in this one and will hope to put the Orange away early. While more Ryan McMahon heroics would be welcomed, hopefully they're unnecessary. While the women's team needs some help to get the double bye, the men's team can clinch a double bye by winning two of their final three games. 

More talk than sports...

took place yesterday on the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour without the guiding hand of our fearless leader. Worldwide and I were joined on the mics by Paige Sherrard and we spent most of the show going off on tangents about any and everything. Have a listen at this link if you care to. We'll be on our own without Paulie again next week as he travels to the ACC tournament, so be prepared for more shenanigans. 

Until next time, Go Cards.

-CH-