Ireland, Ayeshia Upset USA in World Cup Field Hockey -- Sunday Cardinal Couple

Field Hockey In London

The Field Hockey World Cup is underway in London.  We here at Cardinal Couple will be keeping a particular eye on Pool B to start out.

Pool B consists of England, India, Ireland, and the USA.  Cardinals fans may have a couple of interests in the pool, with Ayeisha McFerran having been in goal for the Irish National Team for several years now, and with Nicole Woods joining the US National Team for the World Cup action this year.  Nicole is a mostly an attacker, with some time spent in the mid-field.  She's most often seen on the left side attack.

In the opening day of play, England and India played to a draw, followed by what may have been the marquis matchup for UofL fans with Ireland and USA starting play early afternoon (Eastern time).

Woods came in off the bench (and was wearing a large white headband, making her easy to spot on the field), and contributed some strong attacking, but the Irish defense, and particularly McFerran were too strong to be breached frequently.  Ireland took the 3 points in the standings with the 3-1 victory over the US.

Ireland was a significant underdog in this matchup, but came out and played inspired Field Hockey.

While they only saw limited success in the offensive set, the Irish counter-attack and fast breaks were stunningly impressive, with 2 of their goals coming on counter-attack fast breaks that resulted in effectively 1 on 1 chances against the US GK.

The US squad will be back in action on July 25th at 3 in the afternoon Eastern Time (assuming I've got my timezones right).  Ireland will play the next day at 9am Eastern time (with the same caveat).

The current results in the pool clearly put Ireland in the driver's seat, with the US a bit behind the 8 ball.  England is the 2nd ranked team in the world, so the US (7th) will have their work cut out for them.  It's a little early to talk about end results in pool play due to the large number of permutations possible still.  But the US really needs to at least get a point off of England with a draw to have a good advancement picture.  A subsequent win against India would put them in a reasonable place for advancement.  Of course wins against both will put them in quite good shape.  The Irish (ranked 16th in the world, and one of the worst tanked teams in the World Cup competition) have certainly upset the apple cart winning the 3 points, and put themselves on a path towards advancement that many didn't expect them on.

Swimming in Irvine

A number of UofL (current and past) swimmers are headed west to Irvine California for the US
Nationals Open championship.  This event is a qualifying event for the Pan Pacific Championships that will have in Tokyo August 9-12.  This event, combined with results for the Pan Pacific event, will be qualifiers for selection to the US team for the 2019 FINA World Championships next summer in Gwangju, South Korea.

The US Nationals Open event will occur July 25th-29th.  I'm confident that the UofL Swimming and Diving twitter feed will post UofL relevant results.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

It was a depleted set of knuckleheads on the radio yesterday, with just Paulie and I in the studio.  Case gave some lame excuse about wedding planning, and he really needs to get his priorities in order.  Jared was back at the bank making change.

You can check out the Facebook Live link of the broadcast.  Topics were Holly Aprile's hiring as Softball Head Coach, Angel McCoughtry's selection to the WNBA All-Star game, Jeff Walz heading out west to coach youngin's for the US National program, an honoring of passed local music legend and Cardinals fan Mickey Clark, and what I think was one of the most enjoyable segments we've done - and it had nothing to do with sports whatsoever - we were able to get The Monk, Kathy Weisbach, out in front of the FB Live camera for once, and on the mic to talk about the origins and development of our wonderful hosts, WCHQ.

As the program transitions to me doing the engineering for the show, Kathy won't be with us on a regular basis on Saturday mornings anymore, so we wanted to take the opportunity to honor her role in the development of CCHR and thank her for her efforts for Cardinal Couple, and the Louisville community in general.  WCHQ's laser focus on local Louisville music is a rare treasure, and Cardinal Couple has been thrilled to be a tangential part of it.  We're thrilled to continue to have a home at WCHQ where we can bring you a bit of live programming (with flubs and all), so that we can remain as up to date and topical in our radio content.

Thank you, Kathy, for all the hours, dedication, ideas, guidance, support and the opportunity. We won't say "Goodbye". We'll just say "See ya down the road now and then." You are the "H" -- the "heart" of WCHQ.

FACEBOOK LIVE REPLAY LINK: https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/2123648084325130/

-- 

JMcA