Spring Without Basketball -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

We all knew that it had to come to an end, but it is not until the final whistle sounds on a Louisville basketball season that the feeling really hits. Last year, for the men's team, that whistle came all too early. This year, both the men's and women's teams seemed poised to potentially make a run before ultimately being snuffed out in drastically different fashions. The final scores of the games are unimportant, as are the narratives of the games. What matters is that we in the city of Louisville are without meaningful basketball for the next few months. The joy of being a Cardinal fan is that the spring seasons are just getting into gear, and that fall sports are just around the corner. Today, let's look at how the spring is going.

Lacrosse Travels to Northwestern

The Wildcats have had Louisville's number in the old Native American sport. Louisville's lacrosse
team has a bit of a rivalry with the team from Evanston, but it has been rather one-sided. Northwestern leads the alltime series 5-1, with Louisville notching it's only win last year in the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium. Northwestern was able to enact swift revenge by knocking the Cards out of the NCAA tournament in the first round. Though ranked 14/17, NU has struggled this year. The Wildcats are 4-5 overall and 1-0 in conference after a win over Michigan. This is an excellent opportunity for the Cards to get a quality out of conference win, but they will need to put together a great game to do it. The game will get underway at 1PM, but does not appear to be accessible on TV. Tune in tomorrow for how this game will turn out!

Softball Wins "Series" at Syracuse

After a series opening 7-4 win on Friday, Louisville will return home having sealed the series with only one game. After the schedule was shifted around repeatedly to accommodate a three game set, the brass at Syracuse ultimately cancelled the final two games of the series, giving the Cards a series win in conference and a couple of extra rest days before their next game. Turns out it is tough to play softball in the rain or on rain soaked fields. Louisville will be back in action on Wednesday when IU comes down the road. First pitch will be at 6PM. The game will be broadcast on ACC Network Extra, but the early forecast indicates pretty good weather. Stop on by to root on the Cards.

Louisville has Fantastic "Rust Buster"

Down in Knoxville, the track and field teams were busy putting in work yesterday. Louisville
finished the day with wins in 6 events and a whopping 26 top five finishes. Winners on the women's team were Mia Ross (1500m), Raven Grant (100m), Kelsey Heyward (400m Hurdles -- Louisville went 1, 2, 3 in this event. They also won the men's race.), Alexis Gibbons (long jump), and Morgan Zacharias (pole vault). Emmonnie Henderson finished third in the discus and Dolly Nyemah finished second in the hammer throw. Overall it was a wonderful day for the Cards and they'll look to have repeated success next weekend in Austin.

Roundup

There are a few other things to mention, but I fear I am getting a bit long winded. Here they are in the lightening round.

The Louisville men's swimming team grabbed an 11th place team finish at the NCAA Championships. Texas won the event by nearly 200 points over second place. Though they've had higher finishes in the past, an 11th place finish is nothing to scoff about. Arthur Albiero said he was disappointed to not achieve their team goal of a top 10 finish (a mere ten points behind 10th place), but that he was excited for what it would teach them going into next year.

The Cardinal baseball team righted the ship after a couple of losses took the shine off of their historic start to the season. Louisville led NC State 6-3 in the bottom of the 9th inning before allowing a three run shot with two outs to tie the game. Fortunately, the Cards were able to buckle down and regain the lead in the top of the 10th and hold onto it for the 7-6 win. Louisville rounds out the series in Raleigh today. The game is a 1PM start and can be found on the ACC Network Extra. 

While the women's soccer team is in the midst of their spring schedule, as are the men. Louisville played a closed friendly against the Chicago Fire yesterday afternoon, which they finished with a 0-0 draw. Chicago played some of their first team players, which makes the draw all the more impressive. Louisville saw familiar faces in Daniel Johnson and Stefan Cleveland, both of whom were drafted by Chicago in this year's superdraft. Ken Lolla was very pleased with the result and said he loves to get his players exposure to pro teams.

Finally, we hosted the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour yesterday morning. In between the banter, we recounted the ending to the men's and women's basketball seasons and tried to keep Paulie, who took the loss quite hard, from throwing things across the studio. Unfortunately, the gremlins at WCHQ have struck again and the show was not recorded, so there is no rebroadcast available for listening. Please tune in next week, when we give all of the other sports the attention we've starved them of during March Madness.

Until next time, Go Cards.

-CH-

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CARDINAL COUPLE PICK 'EM

We have a Great Eight in the NCAA WBB Tourney. Congratulations to Baylor, Notre Dame, Stanford, IConn, Fla. St., South Carolina, Miss. st. and Oregon for getting this far.


In the contest, your top performers 56 games in and seven to go:

49-7   The Deb Factor
48-8   Cliff, Curtis F., 
47-9   Kenny S.
46-10 Charlie Mc., Paulie, Perry S. 
45-11 The Real Joe Hill 

Good games today! Enjoy! Have some!

~Paulie~