Sunday Cardinal Couple

 Another Busy Weekend

Here we go again with another busy Saturday/Sunday combination to run down as we continue, in this Covid-altered year, with an unprecedented season of spring sports that includes all of the normal overlap of sports from winter and springs seasons, and adds on the fall sports now playing official spring seasons.

Softball

Yesterday was another double-header Saturday for Softball with this year's conference scheduling of four game series in three days.  This time, Virginia Tech was the visiting team at Ulmer.

VT brought in some high caliber pitching, mostly in the form of Keely Rochard, and shut out the Cards in the first game of the afternoon, 2-0.  The Cards had a chance to get on the board in this one in the 2nd inning with back-to-back hits, followed by a hit by pitch.  That loaded up the bases with Makayla Hurst on 3rd, Cassady Greenwoord on 2nd, and Charley Butler on 1st.  You've got several players there that have shown that they can get on base, and did so, and all have good base running speed, but UofL wasn't able to take advantage of it.  Rochard dealt a pair of strike-outs to end the inning with the bases still loaded and no one crossing the plate.

Credit to UofL for playing tough against a top 20 team in the first game and some credit for Taylor Roby in the circle for slowing down VT's offense, but even better things were in store.

Rochard and Roby would take a seat for the start of the 2nd game, and Gabby Holloway would be in the circle for the Cards.  VT got on the board in the 3rd inning, with some good solid offensive play, and capitalizing on a pitching error for Holloway.  The Hokies would get two across, but that would be it for the game.

The Cards, or more specifically, Makayla Hurst would answer in the 4th inning with a solo shot over the left centerfield fence.  Then, in the 6th, Taylor Roby would get on base with a single, be replaced by the considerably faster Jen Leonhardt, but that would end up not mattering when Hurst came to the plate, and again, sent the yellow orb soaring over the left field fence, allowing a casual jog around the bases for Leonhardt and Hurst.

Roby did come in for two innings of pitching and gets credit for the win.

UofL will finish their series, assuming the rains hold off, against VT today with a 1pm first pitch.

(Pictures of softball from Jared Anderson) 

Jared caught up with head coach Holly Aprile after the double header:

LINK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpo_LahoIqc

Field Hockey

The Cards, in New England, would take a bit of an upset from 16th ranked Boston College yesterday
.Sowry's "stick girls" , tied for 2nd in the NFHCA poll continued their gauntlet through the ACC.

This one was a low scoring affair, with the Eagles getting their only goal on the penalty stroke with under four minutes left in the game.

The Cards had a chance with a pair of penalty corners with less than 2 minutes left in the game, but couldn't convert them.

Currently 9th ranked Syracuse comes to visit Trager stadium next Sunday for a noon start.

Soccer

Western Kentucky was the foe, and Bowling Green was the locale, for Soccer yesterday.

The Cards are still looking for effective offense after the departure of Emina Ekic.  WKU jumped on the scoreboard early, with just two minutes off the clock on a set piece that slipped by GK Gabby Kouzelos.  GK the GK would go on to have five saves in the game, but the Cards offense would never find an answer for that early goal, and WKU would defend their home turf with a final of 1-0.

The Cards get a couple of weeks off to think about this one, and will host Tennessee on April 10th at 2pm.

Basketball

The NCAA tournament continues with some interesting games yesterday.

UConn advanced over Iowa.  The Hawkeyes kept this one fairly close for a while, but UConn did eventually stretch the lead out, winning 92-72.

Baylor got the win over Michigan, but this was an exciting one.  Baylor would get the win in overtime 78-75.

The other bracket was upset central with 4th seed Indiana surprising top seed NC State, 73-70.  They were helped a little bit by some questionable (read: "What was he thinking?!") clock and timeout management by NC State WBCA Coach of the Year Wes Moore.

Finally, Arizona got a pretty easy win in the mild upset over Texas A&M, 74-59.

UofL plays their Sweet 16 game this evening against Oregon.  The Ducks are without Sabrina Ionescu as she has moved on to join several UofL alumnae on the New York Liberty, but they still have a roster packed with great players.  6'5" Nyara Sabally leads the team in scoring, joined by 6'7" Sedona Prince patrolling the paint when she's not taking down the NCAA in her spare time.  You'll also remember Erin Boley, who at "only" 6'2" is more likely to be out around the three point line draining shots from range.  Tip-off at 7pm.

We'll have a updated Cardinal Couple NCAA Bracket Pick 'Em update in Monday's article. None of our contests went 4-4 yesterday. 

In Action Today

Juggling a busy schedule ! 

In addition to softball mentioned above, Lacrosse will be in action today.  They are also in Boston along with the Field Hockey team and will be matching up against 4th ranked Boston College with the first draw at 11am. LAX gets the ACC Network call, FH is on ACC Network Extra. 

Volleyball will be in action against NC State with a 2pm first serve.  I dropped in to the Georgia Tech vs NC State match yesterday...GT won 3-0...for a bit of scouting on NC State.  UofL should be able to win this one if we're able to apply offensive pressure.  My impression was the NC State's digging and passing will get a lot of balls up, but rarely on target.  They ran their setter all over the court yesterday, and thus rarely got a solid hit against GT.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Finally, Case, Paulie, Jared, and myself got together for another Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast.  We sped through covering as much of the activity in UofL women's athletics as would could in an hour(ish).  We think we did most of them justice.

JMcA