Baseball Stumbles, Shook gets Sick -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Shook Bows Out of U-19 Trials

Louisville's chances to be represented on the U-19 US National Team were reduced yesterday when reports came out that Kylee Shook would not be reporting for the team tryouts in Colorado. Upon hearing this, I tried to justify it by thinking maybe she wanted more time for individual workouts, but I couldn't validate any reasons on why a player would want to miss out on this opportunity. Fortunately, our head man has some connections, and when Paulie reached out to Jeff Walz we received a reasonable response.

Kylee Shook will not be reporting to Colorado as she has come down with the flu. 

Much is made about Jordan's Flu Game in the NBA Finals, or how Russ Smith scored 40+ against SMU while throwing up on the sideline during timeouts, but the truth is that it's really hard to function while you battle such an illness. It's particularly hard to function at a high level and at your absolute best, as all the participants will be asked to do during these team tryouts. From all accounts I've heard, a summer flu is even worse than one contracted during regular flu season.

We here at Cardinal Couple wish Kylee a speedy recovery, and we wish future Cardinal, Dana Evans, the best of luck as she competes against some of the best young women in the country.

Louisville Drops Third Straight, Loses Series

For the first time this season, Louisville has tasted a series defeat. Errors, walks, and miscues in general, have been rampant this week, but really showed up late in last night's loss. Louisville entered the ninth inning trailing by only two run, but it seemed that reliever, Adam Elliott, may have overstayed his welcome after a scoreless eighth inning. After the first Seminole batter of the inning hit a single, the next batter came up to bunt him over. Elliott walked him on four straight pitches. The next batter came up to bunt the pair over. Ahead 0-2, Elliott hit the batter on the bunt attempt. (Disclaimer: I wasn't watching the game, but I was listening. Sean Moth, and many others, seemed convinced that the batter had attempted to bunt on the HBP, which should have resulted in a strike and an out.) Disclaimer aside, it was bases loaded and nobody out. A single into shallow right kept the bases loaded and put the Noles up 4-1. Elliott responded by striking out the next two hitters, looking like he might get out of the jam. Florida State, with the help of a couple of Cardinal errors, went on to add four more runs before Elliott was replaced with Shay Smiddy. Louisville was able to get only one run back in the bottom half and the final score was 8-2. 

While Louisville's lone run wouldn't have been enough to surmount even the two-run lead FSU had to start the inning, there is no disputing that the morale and drive would have been higher had the Cards only needed two (or even three if the damage had stopped at 4-1) runs to extend the game instead of seven. Nonetheless, after a frustrating midweek loss to the Hoosiers and an ugly start to the series on Thursday, Louisville is reeling and needs to get their mind right before heading into the postseason. A win today can still give the Cards the number one seed in the ACC Tournament, and they'll be fighting for their post-season overall ranking today and potentially even next week. This team is built for success, but now would be a terrible time for it all to fall apart. Game three of the series takes place at Jim Patterson Stadium at 7:30 PM tonight and will be aired on ESPNU. This will be your last chance to see Dan McDonnell's team for FREE this season, so head on out to 3rd and Central if you've got nothing else going on.

Cardinal Couple Off the Air

With the Mighty Kindness Festival taking place in Crescent Hill, WCHQ has no room at the inn for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour today. Them's the breaks when working with a local station, but there should still be plenty of good listening on the station should you choose to tune in today. The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour will return next week, but I'll miss the studio for the third week in a row as I'll be a couple of hours north preparing to watch fast cars turn left. 

Looking Ahead

I'm a numbers guy. Whether that has been apparent from the way I write or the stats I like to talk about on the show, I can't be sure, but I really enjoy statistics. As an engineer, I've always been drawn to math and the hard numbers of sports. Some of my favorite work is done by FiveThirtyEight. In the spirit of this enjoyment of numbers, I've been kicking around the idea of a statistical recap of the sports we cover heavily on Cardinal Couple. I'll be putting my fandom of the boys' teams aside for this one and getting to the roots of Cardinal Couple, looking at the women's teams' points of success and failure, as well as places where they improved or regressed from last season. I don't have date for when this will happen (I haven't even started it yet, in fact), but it will come some time later this summer after I've finished my final term of school. If this is something you're vehemently disinterested in as a whole, be sure to let me know so I don't waste a bunch of time on it. Otherwise, be on the lookout for a bunch of numbers coming your way.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-