Field Hockey, Volleyball Extend Win Streaks -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Field Hockey Gets Ranked Road Win

Thanks to Jared Anderson of Paulie, Sonya, Bob and Kathy
at UofL football game last Saturday. 

Louisville may have finally turned the corner this season after defeating 8th ranked Boston College in Massachusetts for their fifth straight win. Louisville has been suspect this season on the road, but outstanding at home. If the Cards have finally found a way to pack up their success in Trager Stadium and put it on the bus with them, we may be able to see something special out of Justine Sowry's team. Louisville left no doubt about their ability yesterday afternoon when they knocked off the Eagles with a final score of 4-1. A second win on the weekend against New Hampshire may be enough for the 11th ranked Cards to crack the top ten when the next polls come out.

Despite BC's high ranking, they are a poster child for how tough the ACC is. After yesterday's loss, the Eagles have still not won a conference game. They are 0-5 in the ACC and 8-0 out of it. Those 8 nonconference wins are considered good enough and being winless in the ACC isn't considered too bad to keep you out of the top 10. Crazy stuff. Louisville was never really in any danger yesterday, winning with a final score of 4-1. Boston College's lone goal came with time expired. Louisville's scorers were Minout Mink, Madison Walsh, and Taylor Stone (with a pair of penalty stroke goals). Ayeisha McFerran manned the pipes and picked up 7 saves to help the Cards stay out in front.

Louisville remains on the road to face New Hampshire and North Carolina this week before returning to Trager Stadium to round out the final three games of the regular season. That matchup against New Hampshire takes place tomorrow at noon and is not listed on any video services. Be sure to follow along on twitter or your favorite stats website, or tune in to Cardinal Couple on Monday to see how it turned out for the Cards.

Volleyball Wins Third Straight

No stats up yet for this one, so I'm a bit dead in the water. Volleyball went to Blacksburg last night to take on Virginia Tech. After a dismal first set in which Louisville was outhit by 0.347 percentage points and lost 20-25, the Cards were able to turn it around and sweep the next three sets for the 3-1 match win. Melanie McHenry was once again the MVP with 13 kills and 14 digs, but Amanda Green matched her with 13 kills and 3 blocks of her own. Without the rest of the stats, I can't give props to all of the girls that were major contributors to the effort, but let's just assume that Molly Sauer had a bunch of digs and Wilma Rivera had a bunch of assists. That seems fair. 

The win pushes Louisville 5 games above .500 overall and to a whopping 4-1 in conference play. Compared to where this team sat after 5 conference games last season, I'll take this for sure. Louisville stays on the road tomorrow to take on Virginia in Charlottesville at 1PM. The game against Virginia marks the last of the first games of conference pairings this season for Louisville. The Cards will face every conference team it has seen thus far (including Virginia) again later in the season. For a young, rebuilding team, I'd say take one game at a time.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

As has been mentioned twice so far this week, Jared and I are both out of the studio today. Paulie and Jeff will be joined by Julie Sullivan and Paige Sherrard for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. They'll have plenty of women's sports to talk about joyously, so my absence means you might be spared the recounting of Thursday night's horror in Raleigh. They'll talk women's soccer, volleyball, field hockey, and Paulie's Adventures in the Little Yum!. Tune into WCHQ at 100.9FM on your radio dial, crescenthillradio.com, or the WCHQ smartphone app at 11:00 AM to join in on the fun.

The rebroadcast of the show available HERE

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-