Lacrosse, Volleyball Wins -- Monday NCAA WBB Bracket Day -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 LACROSSE DOWNS MARQUETTE 14-10 

The #17 ranked Louisville Lacrosse squad had a successful trip to Marquette Sunday and defeated the Golden Eagles 14-10 in a match. 

It's wasn't the best of starts for the LaxCards, after an opening Caroline Blalock goal less than a minute into play. the upset-minded Marquette squad ran off four straight scores on Louisville over the next ten minutes of the fist half. Louisville had run into a fired up Big East opponent, no doubt -- but didn't panic. 

Slowly and methodically, Louisville worked their way back into this one. They got goals from Alex McNicholas, Izzy Holmes and another from Blalock to tie things up at 4-4 with 11 minutes left in the first half. Rachel Florek and Louisville's defense was doing their part to keep the Golden Eagles out of the net and the Cards continued the one-sided scoring spree. Izzy Holmes found the net for her second score, then Ally Hall went back-to-back for scores for the UofL and with six minutes left in the half, Louisville had built up a 7-4 lead and had shut out Marquette for 17 minutes. 

Marquette did end up with the final score of the first half, and the squads went to the intermission with UofL holding a 7-5 lead. 

Slow starts to halves have become a recent thing for Scott Teeter's squad -- after Hannah Morris got her first goal of the day just 90 seconds into second half action --  Marquette made one last charge at the lead and cut the Cardinal advantage to 8-7 at the seven-minute mark of the final half. Allegra Catalano and Ally Hall responded for UofL, though, to push the lead back out to 10-7 with 12 minutes gone in second half action. Hall picked up her fourth score and Kokoro Nazawaka added her first tally of the match to build the lead to 12-8 with nine minutes remaining. 

Ally Hall had the hot stick and the Cards were going to go to it -- to close out the contest. Her fifth and final goal came with six-and-one-half minutes to play, making it 13-8 Louisville, and Hannah Morris recorded her third goal of the game to make it 14-9 with four minutes remaining. MU added a meaningless score with 36 seconds to go...the Cards had mastered Marquette magnificently. 

Your final in Milwaukee -- Louisville 14 - Marquette 10. 

The Cards won each half 7-4 and may have found a new player to manage the draw controls after goal scoring in sophomore Ashley Osbourne. The four year starter and four time MVP at Louisville Ballard High School was put in after Marquette was seemingly winning all the early draw controls.

Osbourne ended up winning five draw controls for the Cards and Louisville ended up holding a 14-12 edge in draw controls. The Cards, who go to 4-2 with the win, held a 29-23 shot-on-goal advantage over Marquette and Florek ended up with 13 saves as the Cards net-tender. Louisville showed a impressive ability to handle early pressure and not fold under it, something that Teeter hopes they can build on, with a very challenging ACC schedule remaining. 

A big time ACC contest awaits Louisville on Thursday, when #1 UNC comes to town for a night contest. The venue? The Cardinal Stadium football field ! 

It'll be the first lacrosse match ever played their and will be shown on the ACC Network. Louisville hopes to get a big crowd out for this one in spacious Cardinal Stadium for the day-after-St. Patrick's Day event.

I caught up with Coach Teeter after the game and here's what he had to say at the link below:  

LINK: SCOTT TEETER AFTER MARQUETTE WIN

VOLLEYBALL WINS IN DURHAM

Cardinal Volleyball took down Duke in straight sets yesterday in the Cameron Indoor Stadium 25-15, 25-22, 25-20 to improve their record to 9-2 and 7-2 in ACC play. 

Nena Mbonu had 14 kills for the Cards, who hit an impressive .296 as a team and had 10 kills. 

Aiko Jones and Anna DeBeer added nine kills each for Louisville and Tori Dilfer provided 31 assists for Louisville, who also got a big boost from freshman Ayden Bartlett (no relation to Louisville singer Robbie Bartlett) with nine digs. 

The VolleyCards have won six straight matches in the spring season and are ranked 13th in the nation by the AVCA Coaches. 

Louisville will travel east for their next matches -- with contests scheduled at Charlottesville, VA against Virginia and Florida State Friday and Saturday. 

SELECTION MONDAY FOR NCAA WBB

Obvious disappointment in the Louisville community this morning, of course, that the men's squad did not get picked for the NCAA Men's Tournament. Maybe they'll get in if someone has to drop out for COVID reasons...

The good news is that the NCAA Women's NCAA Tournament Bracket Draw is tonight and Jeff Walz's squad is eyeing a high seed in that affair.

The Bracket Reveal is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight and will be on ESPN. 

Jeff Walz is slated to hold a presser to discuss it tonight at 8 p.m. and we'll monitor that and provide you coach's comments in the Tuesday Cardinal Couple. 

Most I've spoke with see the Cards WBB squad having a chance to be a #2 seed in one of the regions. 

What are your thoughts on that? Let us know in the comments section?  

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CARDINAL COUPLE NCAA WBB BRACKET CHALLENGE 

The NCAA Women's Tournament also brings about another Cardinal Couple Pick 'Em contest.  Bracket Czar Jared will have more details on that in his Tuesday article -- 63 games from 64 teams. It should be interesting. Can you win?  

Have a marvelous Monday ! 

paulie