Softball Struggles at Notre Dame -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Softball

Sam Booe pitching in relief

A number of Louisvillians make it a point to get out of Louisville for Derby Day, and Softball is no exception.  The squad went north to 20th ranked Notre Dame, and dropped a pair of games, 5-0, and 5-1.

After inclement weather prevented play on Friday, the Cards and Irish made yesterday a double-header and will finish the three game series today.

In the first game, Taylor Roby started in the circle and pitched four innings and started the fifth inning before getting relief from Sam Booe.

Korbe Otis drawing the walk

Notre Dame played some small ball and took advantage of some fielding errors to get a pair across the plate in the 3rd inning.  A similar story in the 4th with the run getting around the field almost completely on mistakes by the UofL squad in the field.

Roby would be finished for the game, though not quite for the day, after a inning opening solo shot by Notre Dame.  As mentioned, Booe came in as relief at this point, and despite giving up a pair of walks in the inning prevented anything further.

Carmyn Greenwood at bat (that's a "7"
not a "1")

The Irish would finish their five runs in the game in the 6th inning, again with mostly small ball.

In the later game, the Cards would get a run across in the first inning, but that would be it.  It started out with Korbe Otis drawing a walk, getting to third on Taylor Roby's single, and scoring on Kendall Smith's ground out to first base.

Notre Dame would tie it up in the bottom of the second and then the scoring would go quiet until the bottom of the 5th.  More small ball and mistakes in the field would get another across the plate for the Irish.

Taja Felder in mid-hover-pitch

Taja Felder would get a couple of outs early in the 6th inning, but with a runner on 2nd and two outs the Irish would score a trio on a couple of singles and a fielding error.  It would be enough enough to sit Felder and let Roby enter to finish the final out of the game.

The Cards and Notre Dame will finish out their regular season schedule with the 2pm game on ACC Network.

Ally Alexander at shortstop

Special thanks to Ryan Greenwood for again supplying us with some away game photos, a special treat for us here at Cardinal Couple.  He's not just out there cheering his daughters, Carmyn and Cassady on, he also slings a pretty impressive DSLR.

WNBA

The WNBA has gotten their season underway with two days of games.  I'll be heading up to Indianapolis today with the family to watch the Fever's home opener against the Sparks.  We were, of course, originally expecting...hoping?...to see a trio of former Cards in this matchup, but WNBA roster sizes being what they are, we won't have the opportunity to watch Kianna Smith or Jaz Jones.  It's a shame, but it will be good to get a chance to see Emily Engstler play in a professional game.

Engstler played 16 minutes in the season opener against the Mystics, grabbed nine rebounds, stole a couple, and scored four.  On the Mystics side of the ball, another former Card, Myisha Hines-Allen scored nine, pulled down six rebounds, and had a trio of assists.

As we look around the rest of the WNBA at other Cardinal Alumnae, Angel McCoughtry is still recovering from another knee injury with the Lynx, but AD (Asia Durr) is back on the court, at least for limited minutes.  She played six minutes with the Liberty yesterday, but had no stat entries.

Dana Evans up in Chicago, is the big success of the weekend so far.  The Sky would go down to defeat in overtime, but Evans was only barely edged out by Emma Meesseman for the most time on the court for the Sky, but she would lead the team in scoring with 24 during her 35 minutes.  A pair of threes, 4-5 from the charity stripe, five assists, and four steals made for a very nice stat line indeed for Evans as she shows why she has earned that starting shooting guard position.

On tap for today, the Fever game that I'll be at with family at 3pm, you can find this one on Amazon Prime, on the Fever's page on Facebook, and Spectrum SportsNet apparently.  And then at 8pm, the Mystics and the Lynx will be on ESPN2.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The CCRHP was silent yesterday as the crew took the day off to celebrate Derby.  I must admit my level of "horse race junky", as Case put it yesterday, is, "Why do we have to interrupt this nice party to watch a horserace?"  I did have a good friend there that had Rich Strike across the board as one of her bets, so that's a nice bit of payout for her.

We'll be back next week with more joy and excitement about UofL women's sports!