Tennis Beats Ball State; Track Underway in South Bend -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Tennis Claims Victory Over Ball State 5-2

After a pair of sweeps at home last week, Louisville headed to Muncie, Indiana to take on the Cardinals of Ball State. The Battle of the Redbirds was a rematch from last season, when Louisville played host. In last season's match up, UofL was victorious, winning 6-1 over a Ball State team that went on to finish the season 16-6, with the final loss coming against the top-seeded Miami (OH) in the MAC Tournament. 

Yesterday, Louisville claimed victory by winning all three doubles matches and four of six singles matches. Ball State put up more fight than the final score indicates, after a big win (6-2, 6-0) for the northern Cardinals in the first completed singles match tied the overall score at 1-1 (doubles matches are completed first). Louisville regained a 3-1 lead before a close Ball State win (6-4, 6-3) made it 3-2. UofL finished off the final two singles matches to take the victory with the final 5-2 score. 

I was a bit harsh on the Cards last week in my assessment of their last few seasons, as there is no way to know this early if the team has turned a corner. A victory over a Ball State squad that they beat last year may not seem like much, but that matchup was just the second of the season and it was a Ball State team that lost just five more matches on the year. Louisville has plenty more time to get everything cleaned up before the conference season gets underway and we'll see during that time if the Cards can continue to put up impressive performances. 

Track Goes to Notre Dame Invitational

For their second winter meet of the year, the Cards are returning to Indiana. After a week off following the Gene Edmunds Cup, in which the Cards saw quite a bit of success, Louisville is in South Bend for a single day invitational meet where they will hope to duplicate some of those strong performances. The return to Indiana may seem a bit odd, but they'll actually head back for a third meet in the state on Valentine's Day at IU. In fact, all but one of the team's winter meets (outside of the championship) takes place north of Louisville. The only southern event is in Fayetteville, Arkansas and will share the competition weekend with the aforementioned event at IU and a third meet hosted in Ames, Iowa. Similarly, the indoor ACC championships will return to South Bend before any NCAA qualifiers head all the way to Alburquerque, New Mexico.

Keep an eye on the results from today's meet posted by the UofL Track and Field Twitter account, which can be followed along on the right hand side of the site, and tune in for final results following completion of the meet later today.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We still haven't given up on this new podcast format. In fact, you might say we're getting better at it every week. I don't know if you believe that, but you might say it. This week, we'll test the capacity of the new studio when we add a fourth member to the mix. Jared has finally emerged from his hibernation and decided to grace Paulie, Jeff, and me with his presence. We've got plenty of basketball to cover, as well as continuing coverage of the lead up to spring sports getting underway. The show this week will again be coming to you at 2:30 PM, so be sure to set your alarm. Tune in to the YouTube Live stream for the show. As always, the recording of this week's show and all past broadcasts can be found at any time on the Cardinal Couple YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to the channel for episodes of the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour as well as future interviews as more sports get underway.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-