Rainy Soccer, Field Hockey and Volleyball on a Big Stage - Sunday Cardinal Couple

 Women's Soccer Loses to Pitt

Finishing out a brutal three game road trip against all top-15 teams, the Cards Women's Soccer team wasn't able to get it done against Pitt, losing 1-0.

It was a rainy one in the City of Bridges with the remnants of Ian making its presence felt.  Nothing severe, just quite a bit of rain.  The Cards had some chances to get on the scoreboard, including a late effort by the forward-pushing Ravin Alexander looking to equalize, but the Pittsburgh keeper made a great save.

Louisville did a great job blunting a high powered offense by Pitt.  The Panthers are averaging more than three goals per game and 20 shots with just short of 10 of those being on frame.  The Cards held them to 14 shots, with only four in the first half, and only three on frame.  Erynn Floyd had a great performance in goal for the Cards, with a pair of saves, including one that she was just barely able to deflect over the crossbar.

UofL was able to put two shots on frame, Savina Zamborini accounting for the other one alongside the Ravin Alexander effort mentioned above.

No coach will ever be truly happy with a moral victory but this might be about as close as you can get to that.  It would not have taken much falling Louisville's way to turn this into a draw, or even a win, against a top 15 team that's so well known for peppering the opponent's goal with shots.

Soccer returns home to Lynn Stadium for three games with Clemson, Boston College, and Notre Dame all making an appearance.  The Clemson game gets the homestand going at 7pm on Thursday.

Field Hockey

VCU is the opponent or Field Hockey today at 12:30.

Louisville is licking some wounds and looking to get back to wining after a mild upset by 7th ranked Virginia on Friday.

VCU is 7-3 on the season, have faced a pair of ranked teams, losing both.  The first was their season opener against then 17th ranked Delaware, and a couple of weeks ago against 13th ranked Saint Joseph's.  Both of those were 2-0 scores.  They have several wins against non-ranked teams that aren't exactly pushovers, including Columbia, Ohio, and Saint Louis.

Three main scoring threats for the Rams, Litiana Field has five goals in only eight games played, Bridget McCormick also has five goals, but has taken all 10 games to do it, while Camila Rosenbrock has found the back of the cage four times on the season.

Sheridan Messier will be the likely goalkeeper, and she has a decent statline with only 10 goals against on the season with 35 saves. She's a graduate transfer-in from University of Albany

Look for the Cards to come out angry after what felt like quite a lackluster performance at Virginia.  They'll have something to prove.  Richmond is still feeling some after affects from Ian, with some lingering drizzle and rain, but nothing severe is expected, hopefully better conditions than they experienced Friday.

It'll be a homecoming of sorts for Cards Goalkeeper Sasha Elliott, she spent four years as the Rams goalkeeper before coming to Louisville as a graduate student. 

Video for the game is only on ESPN+.

Volleyball

Once again, Volleyball gets the big stage, and I expect ESPN will again get what they're looking for with 11th ranked Georgia Tech coming in to L&N FCU Arena.  It should be an exciting match against the 2nd ranked Cardinals.

Georgia Tech arrives in Louisville with a 10-2 record.  Their loses were to Ohio State, which Louisville fans can certainly understand, and to Arkansas.  Now, before you scoff at a loss to Arkansas, a school not particularly known for Volleyball prowess, they are having a decent year.  The Razorbacks knocked off then 8th ranked Washington for the season opener, and GT was ranked 7th when Arkansas knocked them off.

GT did not play as stiff of a non-conference schedule as Louisville, but there are still some decent wins in there, with Illinois, Dayton, and BYU, all decent teams that were swept by the Yellowjackets.

Two of the three "Killer Bees" are still playing with Brambilla having graduated.  Bianca Bertolino does play second fiddle to Julia Bergmann with 89 kills on the season to 220.  Hanging right with Berolino, however, you also have Erin Moss who's put down 88.  The rest of the offense comes from Tamara Otene with 68 kills, and Breland Morrissette with 61.

The GT attack is not as potent this year, with the team only averaging .263 on the season, but they have held opponents to .182 hitting, so beware the Yellowjackets blocking.

Georgia Tech and Louisville are part of a 4-way tie for first place in the ACC, so this match will start to break that up.  To be technically correct, the best kind of correct, of course, Pitt currently holds the lead with a 4-0 conference record, but that's just because their conference matches were on Wed. and Fri. this week (wins over Virginia and Duke) and they'll be stepping out of conference today to play High Point.  The other contender at the top of the table is Syracuse.  They'll be playing Virginia Tech today, and hosting Notre Dame on Friday before we play them a week from today.  If they can handle VT today, it looks like it'll probably be up to us to hand them their first conference loss, because Notre Dame isn't looking great this year.

This match is part of a big push by ESPN this season of adding Volleyball into the programming on their flagship channel.  As mentioned last week, it started with what was clearly an experiment, and a successful one, at that, showing our match vs Kentucky, and quickly after more matches were elevated to the main channel, including two last Sunday and two today opposite NFL programming on Fox and CBS. 

 

Unfortunately, today is day two of a carriage contract dispute between Dish Networks (and its Sling subsidiary) and Disney so none of the Disney, ESPN, and some local ABC channels, are available on Dish or Sling right now.  We'll see how much that cuts down viewership numbers.

Start time at 1pm for this one, and I would say if you're a Dish or Sling subscriber, get down to L&N FCU Arena to watch it in person, but I believe it's already a sell out.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

"Turn up the daggone volume, them crazy Cardinal Couple boys are on !"

Case, Paulie, and myself were on the call for the CCRHP this week.  A good discussion of Field Hockey, Soccer, and Volleyball.  We were enjoying the fall weather, sharing our thoughts for those impacted by Hurricane Ian, and just generally enjoying being fans of UofL women's sports.

Check out the replay at anchor.fm or any significant podcast directory: https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-Continues-ACC-Reign-FH-and-Soccer-Stumble-e1olb6s

-- JMcA