Sunday Cardinal Couple - Lacrosse, Softball, Cheerleading and Dance

It's been quite the weekend of mixed results in varsity sports.  Fortunately, there are chances still alive to come out of the weekend ahead.  In the non-varsity world, things are bright and sunny.

Softball

Pearsall's squad dropped the 2nd game of the weekend series in Beantown 6-2 against Boston College.  The highlights of the game for the cards were an RBI by Morgan Meyer that brought Jenna Jordan home in the 4th inning, and an alas-too-little-too-late homer for Nicole Pufahl in the 7th.

Megan Hensley takes the loss with 5.1 innings of pitching, with Maryssa Becker taking over in the bottom of the 6th to get the Cards out of a rough inning, but the damage had been done.

In positive news, Jordan McNary has come back from the concussion protocol and is back in the lineup.  That helps the Cards maintain speed on the basepaths, and fielding of about 3 acres of space out in left field.  Nicole Pufahl continues her power tour through the ACC, and Morgan Meyer continues her evolution from a slapper to a solid, if perhaps not spectacular, hitter.

This game evens the series in Boston, and the Cards with "pahk the cah" for the rubbermatch today at noon.

Lacrosse

Coach Kellie Young was not happy with her team as the Lacrosse squad didn't follow the scout and let the defense cool against UNC standout Marie McCool who scored a whopping 7 times of the Tarheel's 15 in their 15-11 win.  While Young crediting her team with not giving up physically or mentally, continuing to attack and play hard into the final seconds of the game, but was mad, and that was her wording, at her team for not watching the film and following the scout that was particularly set up with a plan to deal with McCool.

The Cards raced out to a 4-1 lead in 7 minutes, at which point your intrepid reporter arrived, and the wheels fell off the bus.  OK, maybe it wasn't quite that dire, but it was clear that the momentum had shifted, UNC had settled in and was determined not to let this one get away from them, which is a big reason they're the #2 team in the country.

There was some back and forth scoring, with the Cards maintaining a 4 point lead until just under 7 minutes left to play when Meghan Siverson fired one home on a free position, and then UNC went on a tear.  For about the next 26 minutes of play, the last 6:46 of the first half, and the first 19:36 in the second, UNC would go on a 10-1 run to 8-13 with Marie McCool scoring all 7 of her goals during the run.  The Cards found themselves again with a Jillian Balog free position score, but the damage had been done.  The Cards would outscore the Tarheels 3-2 in the last 10 minutes of the game including a Hannah Koloski unassisted goal with 11 seconds left.

Brittany Read had 14 saves in goal to keep it from being a much worse outcome, and my subjective judgement was that the Cards should be glad the UNC attack wasn't more accurate as it seemed they took a lot of shots that weren't on frame...some wildly out of frame.

While I maintain that women's basketball is the worst officiated sport around, there were some questionable moment for the white and black stripes in this one.  Whistles stopped play at one point with an offsides call on UofL  (essentials of offsides for Lacrosse: at least 4 field players must remain behind the restraining line on each side of the field.  The restraining lines divide the field roughly into thirds), and there were clearly 5 players in Cardinals white standing in the middle third of the field (on a whistle, players stop where they are on the field as they must resume play from any infraction at the same location in general).  Even if you claim one of the players was beyond the restraining line and stepped back just as the whistle was blown, that still leaves the Cardinals in compliance, and only one player was even close to the line at the time.  OK, inadvertent whistles can happen, I get it, but they consulted about this call, with all of the players standing stock still where they could easily be counted, for about 2 minutes before finally overturning it.  What took so long, folks?  1-2-3-4-5, not even close to an offsides infraction, inadvertent whistle, restart play already.

Lacrosse hits the road next for an April 15th game at Virginia.

LINK: POST GAME KELLIE YOUNG

Cheerleading and Dance

We don't usually pay too much attention to the UofL spirit squads, one of the most successful sets of athletic teams at the University.  They aren't a varsity squad, they don't get scholarships, but they put in massive amounts of work, and if anyone wants to claim they aren't athletes, I'll be more than happy to go toe to toe with them in defense of the spirit squads.

Daytona is the annual convention and national competition for the NDA and NCA organizations with which UofL's spirit squads are associated.

Competing under the banner of the NCA, the National Cheerleader's Association, UofL has already claimed 2 wins, in the small co-ed, and all-girl competitions.  On the NDA, the National Dance Alliance, side of things, the Ladybirds won, again, the Hip Hop division, and the main Dance Team Performance division.

In the dance and cheer worlds, these victories are about as earth shattering news as the sun rose again today, but our spirit squads tend to not draw the attention that they probably should given just how amazingly good they are, so I wanted to be sure to mention their successes here.

JMcA