Volleyball and Cardinal Couple Radio Podcast -- Sunday Cardinal Couple

Good Sunday morning to all, and I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.  I joined some friends last night for a social gathering via Google Hangouts and it was delightful and refreshing.  It's important that we all make an extra effort to reach out and maintain contact with people we care out.  I tend to joke about being a Gen-X former latch-key kid that's overwhelmingly introverted, but even I find myself feeling a touch isolated wanting to spend time with others.

Some Old Volleyball News

We're definitely into what we call the summer slump at Cardinal Couple, where there's very little news to cover on these pages.  It feels a little weird to be saying that in late March when we're normally in the throes of March Madness.

I did want to go back and pick up a bit of news from the Volleyball front that I think we didn't up at the time.  Specifically around a couple of personnel moves.

Of course, UofL Volleyball is set to have a very large roster in the Fall, with the program on track to have a whopping 19 women on the roster.

So, let's do a quick rundown of what we know.

First, Shannon Shields, one of the setters on the squad has decided to play much closer to home, transferring to Arizona State.  Shields came into the UofL program as a highly heralded freshman setter, and walked right into a battle for the position that perhaps she wasn't expecting when Tori Dilfer transferred from TCU to the Cardinals.  Ultimately Dilfer largely won that position battle, although it did take until late in the season for it to largely be settled.

After Shields' departure, Rachel DeMarcus decided to join the Cards, transferring from South Alabama where she was the primary setter for the squad.  This gives the Cards a viable 2nd setter, and does raise the specter of another position battle for setter with a Senior Dilfer and Junior DeMarcus vying for the position.

DeMarcus is from Lexington, KY, and played high school volleyball at Bryan Station.  She played club volleyball with Kiva in Louisville, joining Alexa Hendricks in being a Lexingtonian making the trip to Louisville to play in club with Kiva.  She earned first team All-State honors at Bryan Station.

The other personnel choice came from Akela Yuhl, who has apparently decided to step away from Volleyball.  Reports are that she was enrolled as a UofL study for the spring semester and didn't have plans to transfer.  I'll be keeping my ear to the ground, here.

OK, to sum up, how do we get to 19?

 The 2019 season roster had 16, which is on the high side of normal for roster size for collegiate play.  Melanie McHenry graduates, Shields and Yuhl depart to drop the roster to 13 returning players.

Add DeMarcus joining for 14, and a signed freshman class of 5 gets us to 19, which is definitely a large roster.

Volleyballers Returning from Europe

Paulie highlighted the coverage by Nancy Worley, from Sports Information at UofL covering volleyball about Tess Clark's return to the US from Spain where she was playing in the pro ranks.  And not just playing, but playing extremely well, by the way.

The Cards did have another alumna in Europe playing volleyball professionally.  Erin Fairs, who played for UofL in 2015 after transferring from USF where she played her first three years, was in Greece playing professionally.  Her tenure in Greece, like Clark's in Spain, was similarly cut short.  Fairs is back home in Richmond, TX safe and sound.

She was back to playing in Greece after her previous season, in Italy, was also cut short due to tearing her ACL.  Fairs returned home to rehab, and got back into playing form in less than a year in time to go play in Greece.

We're obviously thrilled that our Cardinals Forever are home safe and sound and wish them well, as always.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

And finally, we had another fun CCRH via Skype with Paulie, Case, and I being able to connect.  Jared was doing essential work in the banking industry.

Good conversation mostly around WBB news, including discussing Dana Evans' continue haul of awards and progression towards awards.  I also brought a little bit of an off-topic bit about NASCAR drivers participating in eSports versions of races while so much is shut down and about the huge viewership that it drew.  Indy Car did a similar event "at" Watkins Glen yesterday.

This one is available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA00Yj-7ftw.  Fox Sports has also committed to showing the whole season of eNASCAR racing in conjunction in iRacing.  I'm not a huge car racing fan, and this is definitely outside of the main topic for Cardinal Couple, but I thought it was interesting from an overall sports perspective, so wanted to bring it up for a quick discussion.

Check out the show below

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JMcA