Pre-Season Lists -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

In the latest sign that the summer doldrums are drawing to close, the pre-season ACC rankings and Pre-Season All-ACC teams were announced for Volleyball and Soccer.

These are always fun, and good honors for those involved, if maybe a bit meaningless in the overall scheme of things.

Case and I referenced these updates yesterday on the radio show, but we haven't covered them here on the site.

Soccer

Soccer was selected 12th out of 14 participating teams in the ACC for Women's Soccer.  No players from UofL were selected for the Pre-Season All-ACC team in the sport.  The top four spots went to FSU, UNC, Duke, and Virginia; worthy selections, all.

While I am a fan of the sport of soccer, and certainly enjoy watching it, Case follows it far better than I, and knows the landscape far more in-depth than I do.  He's looking for the UofL team win an ACC tournament game, and make an NCAA appearance.  With 8 teams participating in The ACC tournament at the end of the season, those are lofty goals compared to a pre-season 12th pick.  Nevertheless, if continuous improvement is what you're looking for, this is about where you start.  This is still a relatively young team, as there are more freshmen than there are sophomores, and there are more sophomores than there are juniors and seniors combined; but it is a team with more experience than last year, with the large number of sophomores returning with a season under their belts when so many were called on to play last year with no collegiate experience whatsoever.

Exhibition play gets under way THIS WEEK, with a trip to Ohio State on Wednesday, and DePaul coming to visit for the first game of a women's and men's exhibition double-header at Lynn Stadium Saturday starting with the women at 5:00.  The men will be playing Lipscomb.

Volleyball

Volleyball was selected to finish 8th out of 15 participating teams in ACC Volleyball.  Two players, Tess Clark and Molley Sauer, were selected to the Pre-Season All-ACC team.  Molly Sauer is the Libero on the team, a junior out of Assumption High School and KIVA, here in Louisville.  Tess Clark is a senior out of Phoenix, AZ who has been a middle hitter for The Cards for 3 years, but early indications are that the new coaching staff wants to take advantage of her strength and power and move her to an outside hitting position for this year.

UNC, FSU, Pitt, and Notre Dame are picked to take the top 4 spots this year.  The only real surprise in the bunch is that Pitt is picked that high.  They have traditionally be a middle-of-the-pack team in Volleyball, though in the past couple of years have shown distinct improvements.

I believe Louisville, with a new coaching staff, is largely a question mark, and thus the middle-of-the-pack selection for the team.  This is a time for potential redefinition of the team and program, and we'll be looking forward to seeing where this program goes.  The energy certainly seems to be there, the only question that remains is the ability of this coaching staff and the players to execute.  The resume's are good, with two of the coaching staff having held tenures at Nebraska, and the third out on the west coast where volleyball is a way of life.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new, at the time of this writing not-quite-finished-being-renovated, Cardinal Arena.  A new venue, new coaching staff, and 6 new players to match names to faces.  We're still two weeks away from the Red and Black Scrimmage, and three away from the official start of the season, but I'm ready to get this season started.


The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We had a great time on the weekly Cardinal Couple Radio Hour yesterday as we discussed USA U23 basketball, other women's sports and played our "Catching Up" interview with Cardinal great Candyce Bingham. In the weekly quiz, Worldwide narrowly avoided an end to his four-show winning streak by pulling out the right answer to the bonus question to defeat Case. Jared ran a close third on the Mascot Quiz. The guys took exception to my quote of the week...but it led to a fun dissection of my thoughts.

Did you miss the broadcast? It's OK...we have the replay for you at the link below:

THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR 8/5/17


paulie
xxxxx