Four Fantastic Finishes on Floyd -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

The University of Louisville had four of their women's athletic squads in action on Sunday at home, in Floyd Street facilities...and found favor in all four outcomes. Owning Floyd Street in women's soccer, field hockey, volleyball and softball. All contests starting within one hour of each other...which stretched CARDINAL COUPLE coverage to its limits...but we gave it the ol' college try. Here's the story: 

WOMEN'S SOCCER SHUTS OUT MIAMI

Case Hoskins and I were present at Lynn Stadium for the ACC match-up between Birds and Canes and were treated to an offensive domination by Louisville over Miami. Senior Day, so the pre-game consisted of a recognition of the two seniors on the Cards squad...KENNADI CARBIN and GABRIELLE VINCENT. With parents and family in attendance, the two were honored and the play began around noon. 



Louisville came out forcing the issue on offense and that was rewarded when SARAH FERNANDEZ headed a corner kick from BROOKLYNN RIVERS into the goal 14 minutes into play. The offense continued to control action and three minutes later EMINA EKIC sent a cross into the box for Rivers, who booted the ball past the UM goalie for a 2-0 UofL lead. 

The Cards continued firing away at the Miami defense for the next 28 minutes, narrowly missing several other scoring opportunities, but could not add another goal. Louisville took the 2-0 lead into halftime. A telling stat from the first 45 minutes -- Miami had no shots in the first half. Cards goalkeeper GABBY KOUZELOS caught up on her Twitter feed, counted the number of red shirts in the Lynn Stadium stands and studied for a Economics exam while standing in front of the net waiting for action. 

Louisville came out with fire again in the final half. Three minutes into action, Ekic set up  ALLISON WHITFIELD with a pass and the Louisville Manual high school grad sent a curving rocket into the goal to make it 3-0 Cards. The Cards had multiple opportunities to increase that in the final 42 minutes of action but nothing went in. Vincent had a one-on-one opportunity against the Canes keeper, but sailed one just a bit too high and DELANEY SNYDER sent a shot in the 81st. minute toward the goal that was a bit too wide. 

The Cards had 18 shots in the contest. Miami one. Louisville heads to Wake Forest Friday for their next action. We caught up with head coach KAREN FERGUSON DAYES and the seniors after the match and you can hear those interviews below. Paulie with the unforced error here in the player's interview...forgetting to turn on his recording device at the start and getting flustered: 

POST GAME KAREN FERGUSON DAYES

KENNADI CARBIN AND GABBY VINCENT


FIELD HOCKEY SPANKS SPARTY 4-0 

While WSOC was controlling action on the south end of Floyd, slightly north of them JUSTINE SOWRY and Cards Field Hockey crew was delivering the knockout punch to Michigan State. Our associate Jared Anderson hustled down there to catch second half action in that one. 

The Cards opened fire midway through the first half in Trager and got four goals from four different players in the first half to blow this march wide open. ELIZABETH ALLGEIER, TAYLOR STONE, BETHANY RUSS and ERICA COOPER the goal-makers in the first half domination. 

20 minutes of scoreless field hockey before Louisville delivered the boom. A penalty corner attempt got the ball to Russ...who bounced one off the MSU goalie's glove for the first tally. Three minutes later, another penalty corner...and it was Stone getting the feed, the shot and the score. At the 27 minute mark, yet another penalty corner attempt...MECHE PASTOR'S shot getting stopped but Allgeier there to collect the bounce and stick it into the goal. 3-0 Cards and Michigan State had to be wondering what was happening. A minute later...(stop me if you've head this one before) another penalty corner opportunity and ERICA COOPER joined the scoring club...following up on a deflection of a Russ attempt. 

The Cards had a 12-1 advantage in shots in the first 35 and a 7-1 edge in corners. 

Louisville did not score in the second half but held the Spartans to just one goal...a highly contested one that went to review and then took the officials quite some time to confirm that a put-back shot did actually count against Cards back-up goalie HOLLYN BARR. 

Pink Day at Trager to honor and remember cancer survivors and those who have passed. 

Field Hockey goes to 10-3 on the season with the win. The Stick Girls will honor their seniors this Friday in a match against Duke. MARIA GOMEZ, AYESHIA MCFERRAN, TAYLOR STONE AND KATIE WALSH the four seniors who will be celebrated. 

Since I was at the other end of the street, Matt Bradshaw, sports editor from the Louisville Cardinal student newspaper conducted the post-game duties and handled the interview with aplomb with Coach Sowry. No student-athlete interview available that I could find. 

POST GAME JUSTINE SOWRY


VOLLEYBALL BOUNCES WAKE FOREST IN THREE SETS

We move next in a northerly direction up Floyd Street to Cardinal Arena, where Louisville Volleyball made short work of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons netters 25-15, 25-17, 25-22. Worldwide Jeff McAdams was in the stands watching this one for us and Jared Anderson continued his Floyd Foray with photos.

Jeff predicted a three-set sweep for DANI BUSBOOM KELLY'S serve and volley squad on our Saturday CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR broadcast and also wondered if there would be a close set in the match. He got that right, too, with a close final set affair. 

The Cards started the first set in the right way, with a 8-5 lead, but a Wake rally saw the Winston-Salem visitors leading 13-12 later in action. Undaunted, Louisville went on a 13-2 run to take the first set. MELANIE MCHENRY produced five kills for the Cards and UofL had an exemplary .433 hitting percentage in the opener. 

More of the same for the Cardinal Arena Conquerors in game two.  A 12-4 start for UofL. WFU managed to battle back to get within five at 19-14 but back-to-back kills from MEGAN SLOAN and AMANDA GREEN finished the Deacs and Louisville's 6-2 final run. Louisville got five kills from Green in the second set and kept up the crisp hitting with a .393 attack percentage. 

The final set belonged to Wake Forest early on, jumping out to a 4-0 lead. The Cards battled back, though and the squads found themselves tied at 20-20 after a Deacs service ace necessitated a Cards time-out to talk it over. The pause proved effective, UofL going on a 5-2 run to take game, set and match. 19 kills for the Cards in the third set and another noteworthy hitting percentage of .412 for the Red and Black. 

No post-game video footage from Dani Busboom Kelly available for this one. 

Louisville (13-4, 6-0) invites Notre Dame to Cardinal Arena next. The 7 p.m. Wednesday match will be shown on the ACC Network Extra if you can't be there in person. 


SOFTBALL SLUGS PAST MOREHEAD IN DOUBLE-HEADER

HOLLY APRILE sent the hit-and-pitch Cards out for their first home appearance in the fall exhibition season and all went well. Over at Ulmer, across from Cardinal Arena the Cards triumphed in both contests...taking the first either 14-0 or 16-0 (depending on who's account you want to refer to) and 9-1 in the second affair.

Since stats aren't normally kept in fall exhibition contests, the main things we can learn from this is that Louisville scored a bunch of runs and the pitching for UofL was pretty solid. Both contests were "run rule" events -- meaning action was only five innings in each. 

Jared Anderson completed his four-for-four Sunday with a stop at Ulmer. Kudos to the "hardest working Sports Photographer in Louisville" for going for the cycle! 

From what we've gathered from Jared and other reports, MEGAN HENSLEY had a superlative day with a total of five RBI's on the afternoon and a double, triple and home run. MADDY NEWMAN showed her hitting prowess...going 4-4 and scoring three runs. Freshman CHARLEY BUTLER had a fine afternoon with four stolen bases and reaching the plate three times. 

Four pitchers toiled for UofL on the afternoon. Besides Hensley, DARRIANNE HALE, KYRA SNYDER and TAYLOR ROBY saw circle action and allowed just one score in 10 innings of work. 

The Cards wrap up the fall season next Saturday with a double-headed at Ulmer. They'll face the Kentucky Wildcats and Western Kentucky Hilltoppers with noon and (approximately) 4 p.m. first pitches. It just might be night be a preferable alternative to watching Cardinal Football getting dumped into the bay against Boston College. 

Jared Anderson also conducted the post-game interview with softball skipper Holly Aprile. He gets the interview video photo-bombed by a couple of Cardinal Softball pranksters. 

JARED ALSO PROVIDED ALL THE PHOTOS YOU SEE HERE TODAY. 

LINK: POST GAMES INTERVIEW WITH HOLLY APRILE 

A busy Sunday. A successful Sunday. Congratulations to all four examples of Cardinal PRIDE, DEDICATION AND PERFORMANCE! 

paulie
xxxxx