Sunday Cardinal Couple - Field Hockey Regular Season Champs

Field Hockey Clenches the Regular Season

UofL Field Hockey knocked down the latest opponent to face them to clench at the very least a share of the ACC Regular Season Championship, and by my math, they have won it outright.

The Cards won the game yesterday against Virginia, 2-1, but this one didn't factor into the conference regular season title.  ACC teams have played a number of double-header weekends with teams this year, but only the first game of each set of contests has mattered for conference standings.  The 2nd games of each weekend have been recorded as non-conference contests.  This somewhat contrived scheduling system is a result of the ACC being the only Division I conference competing in Field Hockey this fall.

In the contest yesterday, the teams competed through a scoreless 1st half before Mercedes Pastor scored on a penalty corner midway through the 3rd quarter.  Credit the assists to Alli Bitting for the injection and Meghan Schneider for the stop and setup.

Virginia would tie it up in the 4th quarter with only nine minutes left to play and as time wound down, golden goal overtime was becoming more likely.  The Dutch freshman, Charlie van Oirschot would say, "No way", intercepted a pass about mid field with only seconds on the clock.  A pass downfield towards the breaking Meche Pastor and Madison Walsh, a tap redirection by Meche to Walsh and Madison fired it home between the leg pads of the UVA goal keeper with 10 seconds left.

Coach Justine Sowry was happy with the grit and determination of the team to get the win, but pointedly commented about the fouls and cards issued to the Cards.  UofL was shown a green card and a trio of yellows during the game which is a lack of discipline almost guaranteed to draw coaching staff attention.

The Cards remain undefeated on the season, with five wins being conference relevant and another pair being classified as non-conference.  UofL has one more game against Syracuse on Friday which means, at worst, they'll end the season at 5-1, though with the way UofL has been playing, 6-0 is quite possible.  2nd place in the ACC is held, unsurprisingly, by UNC at 3-1.  That one loss coming at the hands of the Cards, of course.  The Tarheels will face Wake Forest, and figure on this one going to the very good Tarheels squad for a final record of 4-1.  (The UNC vs Boston College game scheduled for today is already listed as postponed).  3rd place in the conference is currently held by Syracuse, with a record of 2-2 with their games against Boston College similarly postponed.

So no one can get to a better record of 4-1, vs the worst possible outcome of 5-1 for the Cards.  This all, of course, assumes no postponed games get played later.

The Cards and the Cuse play Friday October 30th.  Then, it's the ACC Tournament after that...

Volleyball Wraps the Season at Pitt

The UofL Volleyball squad will finish their fall slate at Pitt.  In this weird weird year of ACC volleyball, Georgia Tech sits atop the conference standings at 7-1, having finished out their slate of matches with a pair of wins over Clemson and will claim the fall regular season outright.  2nd place is held by Notre Dame at 6-1, and again, unless the postponed match against UofL can be rescheduled, they wrapped their fall slate with a pair of wins over Boston College.

The Cards are looking to get a win over what has, in recent years, been a dominant Pitt squad, but this year, is sitting about mid-pack in the ACC at 4-3.  Pitt is clearly not the team they have been, though they are still a very potent squad, to be sure.  Their middles looked good during Friday's play, matching up well with our own.  As Case mentioned yesterday, nearly all of the statistical categories show a very close match, including the set scores!

Louisville will be coming out today looking to keep their composure and keep control.  My super subjective take on the Friday play was that many of the Louisville contacts resulted in the ball being a couple of feet away from where they really wanted it.  The shots were good, but just enough off to give Pitt a play on them, so if Louisville can tighten those up just a bit, good things could happen.

This match up starts at 3:30pm, and is available on ACC Network. 

WSOC hosts Notre Dame on Senior Day

Louisville Women's Soccer (4-2) plays the first of their two final games of the fall schedule when they bring Notre Dame in for Senior Day. This one is on the ACC Network at 1:30 PM today.

The Cards honor seniors Emina Ekic, Taylor Kerwin. Lana Batson and Amari Hopkins. 

The Irish come in after two straight losses in South Bend to Wake Forest and Clemson. They've had the Cards number in the overall series -- with a 11-4-1 edge. The Cards took the 2018 matchup in Lynn 1-0 and the two tied 0-0 in South Bend last year. 

CCRH Week Off

This would normally be where I would link to the latest Cardinal Couple Radio Hour stream.  We took the week off due to scheduling challenges.  We're expecting to be back next week!

JMcA