Volleyball Completes Fleur De Lis Sweep -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Overcome 1st Set Loss to Defeat Arizona State

Louisville volleyball beat Arizona State 3-1 yesterday to complete the Fleur De Lis tournament 3-0 on the weekend. The Cards won 9-11 sets, losing one to Western Kentucky and one to ASU. Louisville now sits at 5-1 on the season, with the lone loss coming last week against Florida. The Cards will next be in action on Friday against Purdue at the Lipscomb Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee.

Yesterday's match looked like it would be good for the home team straight out of the gate. Louisville jumped out to a 4-1 lead and ultimately stretched that to a 9-3 lead over the Sun Devils. Unfortunately, that was the last time the official UofL Volleyball twitter account tweeted about the first set, and the box score suspiciously lacks the play-by-play portion of yesterday's match. Anyway, at some point, Arizona State mounted a comeback. They led the Cards 20-15 before going on to win the first set 25-22. ASU hit only .080 in the set, but Louisville saw their struggles and raised them, hitting .000 for the first set, with only 6 kills compared to 6 errors.

From the first set on, Louisville mostly cruised, with only a few threats from Arizona State in the
remainder of the match. The Cards won the final three sets 25-18, 25-17, and 25-15 to take the match 3-1 and put this weekend behind them. One of the most exciting moments of the remainder of the match came in the second set when Anna Stevenson found herself on the ground with the ball in play on Louisville's side of the court. Stevenson literally crawled along the net to get back into position before popping up just as Arizona State received the ball and slamming down a solo block.

It was one of Stevenson's two solo blocks on the day as she led the team with a total of 6 blocks contributed. Stevenson also finished with 9 kills and only one error, leading to an overall very nice day for the junior.

In double digit kills for the Cards were Melanie McHenry, Aiko Jones, and Amber Stivrins. Jones led the team with 13 kills on 30 attempts and 5 errors and she was followed closely by McHenry who was 12/31 with 5 errors. Stivrins had the second highest hitting percentage behind Stevenson, as she finished 10/22 with no errors.

On the whole, the Cards hit .210 for the match. It's not great, but it's also not bad, and it will do well against the .086 combined hitting set forth by the Sun Devils. Louisville also committed only six service errors in this match, a major difference from Friday, when a single Cardinal had that many in a match. 

Shannon Shields led the way in the setter battle, as she finished with 31 assists for the Cards, compared to Tori Dilfer's 13. Obviously, that battle is ongoing and Coach Dani Busboom-Kelly may not be anywhere near making a decision, but having a position battle where both players are making it hard to choose based on their successes rather than their failures is a positive. 

As mentioned previously, the Cards will take their 5-1 record to Lipscomb this weekend for a pair of matches against the Bisons and the Boilermakers of Purdue. 

Kent State has Some 'Splainin' to Do

Yesterday afternoon, I was cruising through twitter, when a tweet from the University of Maine field hockey account caught my eye. They announced that prior to the second overtime of their match, Kent State administration deemed the match a "no contest" so that the Kent State football game could start on time at Noon. Right off the bat, this seems fishy, but don't worry - it gets worse. The field hockey match did not even include the Golden Flashes; it was a neutral site match between Maine and Temple.

The match also wasn't interfering with football, it was on the field of an adjacent stadium.

The field was cleared so that fireworks could be discharged safely during the football game. These fireworks were akin to the cannon shots you often see at a sporting event during the National Anthem when the phrase "the bombs bursting in air" is sang/played. And that "no contest" designation? It didn't end the match in a tie. Instead, it throws the match out completely. Maine has removed the match from appearing on their schedule and Temple has retroactively marked it as a scrimmage.

LINK TO ARTICLE:  YOU BLEW IT, KENT STATE

Who knows, maybe the Kent State administration was still smarting from the 4-2 loss to Louisville Field Hockey back on Sept 4th. and decided to spread the pain to other schools?  

Whatever the circumstances, this was a disrespectful and shameful act by the Kent State administration. Many have called for a Title IX investigation, though I'm not sure if that applies. At the very least, the teams deserve a sincere apology and potentially some other form of compensation. Maine will have their chance to show how they feel when they take on Kent State this morning at 11. I hope they beat the brakes off of the Flashes.


CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR

Paulie, Worldwide Jeff, Daryl (Foust -- not the disco ball) and I gathered in the magnificent media mansion on Mellwood yesterday for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour and the usual non-sense, coupled with the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports ensued. Hear it below: 

CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR 9-7-19

We said a sad goodbye to Daryl the Disco Duck Ball during the broadcast. After serving us well, the orb simply refused to dazzle anymore. It will be put in the WCHQ Museum, and a cocktail reception is in the works for "Daryl's Demise". See Jared at the bank for tickets. 

Our station mascot, Floyd, will read some Donna Summer and Bee Gee's lyrics and Jared will perform "Disco Duck" on his euphonium . wear your platform heels and any polyester you can dig up. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-