Sunday Cardinal Couple - All Cheat Code Team

 It's been a pretty quiet weekend for Cardinal Athletics.  A Football game yesterday (no, I didn't watch), Cross Country and Men's Soccer Friday (check out Case's excellent article yesterday if you missed it for Cross Country results), and a Women's Soccer game Thursday.

So today seems like a good day to pull together and post another "Cardinal Couple Honors Team".  I haven't done one of these in a while, perhaps the last was the All-Sid/Syd/Szyd team?

I'm calling this one the All Cheat Code Team.

If you're not familiar with cheat codes, they're a feature of many video games where, if you enter the right code in some sort of input to the game, you get some sort of bonus or boost.  Perhaps the earliest, and almost certainly the most famous, is the "Konami code", originally introduced to the game Gradius to facilitate testing.  If, while having the game paused, you pressed up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, in that order, you would get a full set of power-ups.  Since then various cheat codes have been incorporated into games on a regular basis, and the idea of cheat codes is now considered a relatively mainstream feature set.

Are you contemplating making a video game of UofL Athletics?  Here are some cheat codes you might consider including...

A-I-K-O or N-E-N-A

You knew I was going to start with volleyball, right?

This cheat code enables an extra four inches of vertical jumping height.

Volleyball shared recently that Aiko Jones and Nena Mbonu are both able to touch 10'11" jumping.  I've heard several commentators waxing rhapsodic about players on other teams being able to touch 10'8 and 10'6".

D-A-N-A

Increases accuracy by 15%.

This one, of course, is a reference to Dana Evans, Guard Extraordinaire with the Women's Basketball Team.  Doesn't seem to need much explanation, does it?

M-Y-K-A-S-A

10% increase in turning and changing directions, and an 5% increased chance of a steal.

It's a shame that Mykasa Robinson is just a little bit too tall to be included in our Attack Yorkies category, because she otherwise exemplifies everything that gets a player added to that list.  The increase in ability to change directions helps with lock-down defense.

M-E-C-H-E or E-M-I-N-A

Improved dexterity, ball control, and a 10% chance of avoiding a steal.

Mercedes Pastor has incredible stick skills in Field Hockey, with moves that defy explanation.  Meche can be quadruple teamed by an opposing team and still have some success maintaining possession of the ball.

Emina Ekic demonstrates similar wizardry on the Soccer pitch.

D-O-R-C-A-S

Ups stamina by 40%.

Dorcas Wasike was tearing up the Cross-Country results until she red-shirted for an injury last year.  We're hopeful to see her back running soon.

In the meantime, we're considering adding S-A-N-G-A as synonym on this one, in honor of Purity Sanga who ran her way into consideration for this team by winning the Blazer Cross Country Classic on Friday.

A-L-B-I-E-R-O or C-H-A-R-L-E-Y

15% increase in speed.

This code was picked for the whole Albiero family, with Arthur as Head Swimming and Diving Coach, and Gabi and Nicolas being members of the team.

Meanwhile, Charley Butler uses her speed to cover acres of territory in left field at Ulmer Stadium for the Softball squad.

F-U-N-K-E

Increase all stats by 5%.  Also, a 33% increase in triples in Softball.

The queen of triples, Celene Funke has also demonstrated strong leadership and an endless source of energy and enthusiasm, giving a lift to all stats of players on the team.

This sounds like it could be a really fun video game, now we just need someone with a bit more software development prowess than I have to develop it for us.

Soccer at Virginia Tech

Women's Soccer is back in action at 2 pm today.  Still in Virginia, they look to bounce back from their loss on Thursday to the Cavaliers.

The Hokies are currently 2-3 in conference play, 2-6.  The wins came over Pitt and Miami, with the loses to a pair of matchups against Virginia, North Carolina, Clemson, FSU, and Duke.

Let's not get too overconfident in this one, those loses are all to pretty good teams in the ACC, even if not all of those games were considered conference games.  (The two games against UVA, and the game against Duke were non-conference).

Another reason not to get too overconfident is the buckets of offense that the team generated in the 8-2 win against Miami on Thursday.  Admittedly, Miami join Boston College and Syracuse in the winless category at the bottom of the ACC standings, but still eight goals is a lot of offense to generate.

Keep an eye on Emily Gray, or maybe more importantly, keep an eye on who else is around when Gray as the ball as she was assisted on four of the eight goals in that game.

The scoring on the team was spread around, with only Allyson Brown coming off the bench to get a pair of goals, including one from Gray, to be the only player to put up a crooked number in the goal column of the stat sheet.

This one will be carried by RSN, so look to your Fox Sports channels to find it, or you can check out the replay after the game is over on the ACC Network Extra.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We missed Jared on the CCRH yesterday, as he was busy at the bank, but Case, Paulie, and I had a good show, with a rundown of the non-conference schedule announced for WBB, some coverage and analysis of Field Hockey, Soccer, Cross Country and Volleyball, and all around a good bit of fun.

Check it out below!

Anchor FM is another link to hear us! 

LINK: 10-17-20 on Anchor FM

JMcA