Field Hockey wins, Nelson honored, WBB #8, Happy Birthday Sean and WSOC Tonight! -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

RUSS'S TWO GOALS LEAD CARDS TO 4-2 WIN OVER KENT STATE

Louisville Field Hockey went to 3-0 on the season and handled Kent State with relative ease for 59 minutes of the 4-2 win at Trager Stadium yesterday. It was the one minute in the fourth quarter that got Cardinal fans a little antsy in the fourth quarter...when the Golden Flashes connected on two scores in a mere 15 seconds. 

Louisville started off with a brisk and unrelenting attack on Kent State and it paid off six minutes into the match when UofL got loose on a breakaway and Margot Lawn sent a long pass to Bethany Russ over to the top of the left circle. Russ performed her magic with a nice reserve shot that found the net to put the Cards up 1-0.

Louisville's defense continued to deny the Golden Flashes offensive opportunities and, just a minute later, Russ sent a nice feed to Madison Walsh from the top of the circle to the right side and Walsh knocked in her second score of the season to put UofL up 2-0. 



The Stick Girls continued to fire away on Kent State goalkeeper Azure Fernsler  in the second period and it finally paid off late in the half when Lawn worked her way through the defense to get off a well-placed, unassisted shot for Louisville's third goal. The teams went to the half at 3-0. It was maybe the best performance of the year for a half by Louisville and six different Cardinals got off shots. 

Sowry also substituted liberally during the 30 minutes. 20 of the 24 players on the Louisville roster saw action. Hollyn Barr turned in a solid, if uneventful performance at goal -- with just one shot on goal attempted against her and the shut-down Cardinal defense. 

It was red-shirt freshman Sam Minrath's turn in front of the next in the second half and it started well for her. Louisville picked up a fourth score just three minutes into the third quarter when Russ tallied her second goal of the game during a penalty corner where Alli Bitting, Emilia Kaczmarczyk and Lawn all tried their luck at scoring but failed before Russ tapped a loose ball into the net to make it 4-0.

Fourth quarter action took a crazy and danger twist and turn. First, Lawn took a ball to the face off a deflected shot by the Kent State goalkeeper, stayed on the turf a very long time and left the game with assistance...her face covered with a towel.  

Then, with 11 minutes left in the game, Kent State got on the board when Clara Seto Rodriguez chased down a Minrath deflection and pushed it past her. Seconds later, Luisa Knapp stole a UofL pass and sent a forward stroke to Laila Ricther in front of the cage. Her shot got by Minrath and suddenly it was 4-2. 

Coach Justine Sowry stayed with the Louisville Christian Academy red-shirt freshman Minrath in between the pipes, though, and the final 11 minutes played out with neither team getting a successful shot off. 

Hoping Lawn is OK. Coach Sowry discusses that in the interview below. The freshman is a dynamic force on the pitch for the Cards and is needed in Louisville's attack formation. 


Louisville dominated the stat sheet, with a 14-7 shot advantage and a 9-4 edge in shots on goal. There were only three penalty corners in the entire game and the Cards had a 2-1 advantage on those. 

With the sparsity of scoring in the game of Field Hockey (compared to other sports), goals are huge and when an opponent can cut a lead in half in several seconds, it gives the UofL coaching staff plenty of teaching material before the Cards leave on a month long, six game road trip that won't have them back in Trager to play until October 4th.  

Every moment matters. Every play is important. 


THEY SAID IT:  

COACH JUSTINE SOWRY POST-GAME

MADISON WALSH POST GAME REMARKS

Here is better quality audio of each: 

JUSTINE SOWRY

MADISON WALSH


NELSON HONORED

Louisville women's soccer defender Niamh Nelson, a senior from San Diego, received a nice honor yesterday when Top Drawer Soccer named her to the "Team of the Week". 

Nelson played every minute in last week's wins over Eastern Michigan and St. Louis. Both were shutouts and she set up the winning goal in the Cards victory over the Billikens. 

Nelson is team captain for the 2019 squad and her honor leads us to: 




WSOC VS IU TONIGHT

7:30 is the time. Lynn Stadium the location and the event is the border battle between Louisville women's soccer and the IU Hoosiers. 

The Cards put their 4-0 record on the line against an Indiana squad that is 1-2 on the season. The Hoosier fell last time out, rather surprisingly, to Murray State 2-1 in the final minutes of the contest played on the Racers turf. An 81st minute Murray goal did IU in, who is under the direction of first year head coach Erwin von Bennekom. 

Louisville is the second ACC team IU has faced this season. The Hoosiers fell 3-0 to #2 ranked North Carolina to start the 2019 campaign. 

Overall, IU holds a 4-1 all-time series lead over the Cards, but Louisville did win the last meeting...a 2-0 triumph, back in 201 at Bloomington. 

Join Jared, Case and me for the action tonight. Who knows, maybe even Worldwide Jeff will emerge from the Digital Ocean and bring Sammy the Shark on land with him for the match...


#8 ??

ESPN has this thing they call the "Way Too Early Preseason Poll" they do for certain sports. The four-letter network released a version of this for women's basketball recently and picked the WBB Cards at #8 for the season that is still more than two months away. 

So...you might ask...how did Jeff Walz's bunch down on Floyd Street fare? 

The top ten: 




1) Oregon
2) Baylor
3) UConn
4) Stanford
5) Maryland
6) Oregon State
7) South Carolina
8) LOUISVILLE
9) Mississippi St.
10) Texas A&M 

It's preseason. And way, way too early.


Occasional CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR visitor Daryl Foust has a bit more on this over at The Crunch Zone. 

LINK: DARYL'S ARTICLE

(The top photo is her, Lindsey Duvall, Mykasa Robinson and Dana Evans. Pretty sure they're NOT at Walmart or in the Korber... )




HAPPY BIRTHDAY !

To Sean Moth. 

Nobody does it better. Keep doing it.

In our daily coverage of the joy and excitement of Uofl women's sports, there are many things to be grateful for and extol. 

One of those is Sean Moth. The do-it-all Cardinal P.A. is also a wonderful ply-by-play announcer. 

My favorite Sean story goes back a couple of years. To 2011. He was calling a UofL Baseball game in mid-May and it was the same day as the Preakness. The Cards had rallied to take the lead and Sean proudly proclaimed that "Uncle Mo was in the Cardinal dugout !!" 

The race horse Uncle Mo was supposed to be resting on WinStar Farm, recuperating from an illness that had kept him from running in the Kentucky Derby (as the probable favorite) and kept him out of the Preakness. 

(Coach Dan is full of surprises, but getting Uncle Mo on the Cardinal roster may just be his biggest feat). I was hoping they'd let Mo enter the game as a pinch runner. Would you get in his way if he tried to steal second?)   



In conclusion...dear readers...



Have a Thursday. 

I'm on my final two days of Jury Pool Duty and hoping with every ounce of my depleted energy, attention-span, motivation and soul that they don't call my number. Just not feeling it today.

Mama said there would be days like this. 

Carry on, knuckleheads. 

paulie
xxxxx