CARDINAL COUPLE

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Sunday, January 29, 2023

A Busy Saturday and Basketball Sunday - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Track and Field




Case shared some of the first day results of the Lenny Lyles Invitational Track and Field Event at the Norton Healthcare Sports and Learning Center at 30th and Market.  We've got a couple of good finishes to report, both in jumping events.

Louisville has traditionally fielded some pretty good throwers, but it seems recently that jumping seems to be where the excellence is happening.  Of course, last year Gabriela Leon competed at the national level in pole vault, and former volleyballer Emily Scott won the ACC in high jump.

Scott is back and competing well, but she's joined by Soledad Jean who was the top UofL high jumper, clearing 1.75m (Scott cleared 1.70m).

Another third place in the triple jump, with a personal best jump of 12.72m for Alba Cuns Iglesias.

Track and Field heads to South Bend next week for the Meyo Invitational hosted by Notre Dame.  The event will span Friday and Saturday, the 3rd and 4th of February.

Tennis





Two events for Tennis yesterday.  They started the day, at noon, against Ball State.

The Indiana Cardinals got the doubles point to start, winning on the first two courts.  They'd go on to pick up the first two single court points, putting the Louisville team on the verge of defeat.  Cici Xin would hold off the defeat with a win on court five.  They did need a tie-break in the second set to decide the match, but Louisville would get the point.

The rest of the courts all went three sets.  Andrea DePalma got the win on court one, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, to pull another point back in the overall.  Ball State would take the victory on court three to clench the overall match.  Tatiana Simova would get the comeback win on court six, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 to keep the overall close at 4-3.

The evening session would be better for the Cards.  With Eastern Kentucky entering the Bass-Rudd at 5pm.

UofL would get the doubles point with a pair of convincing wins at 6-1, and 6-1 on both courts two and three.  Jamilah Snells and Cici Xin got the win on court two, while Rhea Verma and Sasha Gorchanyuk won court three.  Andrea DiPalma and Tatiana Simova were in the lead at 6-5 on court one when they called it to got going on the singles courts.

EKU got on the board at court one when Andrea DiPalma had to retire from the match, and we're hoping it's not anything too terribly significant that caused that.  Louisville would then just run the rest of the board.  Rhea Verma winning 6-2, 6-1; Maria Campos winning 7-5, 6-0; Cici Xin winning 6-0, 6-3; Tyra Richardson winning 6-0, 6-0; and Sasha Gorchanyuk winning 6-3, 6-1.

The team heads to Nashville on Friday to take on Vanderbilt, with the time yet to be announced.

Swim and Dive





Coming off of a narrow loss to a well ranked Indiana squad, the Cards were looking for a win, and Cincinnati was the victim.

Swimming at the Ralph Wright Natatorium on Floyd Street, the Cards more than doubled up the score on Cincinnati, winning 198-92.

Some of the highlights include the 200 medley relay team comprised of Fernanda Gomes Celidonio, Gabi Albiero, Tristen Ulett, and Karoline Barrett touching the wall first.  Paige Kuwata touched first in the much longer 1650 freestyle.  The 200 freestyle individual was completely owned by the Cards with Julia Dennis, Christina Regenauer, and Ella Welch touching one, two, and three.

Paige Hetrick won the 100 backstroke, Madie Hall won the 200 fly,  Ella Welch (22.32), and Karoline Barrett finished one and two in the 50 free sprint, and Julia Dennis won the 100 free.  Fernanda Gomes Celidonio and Cecilaa Viberg took the top two spots on the podium in 200 breaststroke.  Liberty Williams topped the field in the 500 free.  Gabi Albiero set a pool record 51.40 in the 100 fly, and let's remember, there's been a pretty darn good butterflyers in this Louisville pool in years past.

Abby Hay finished off the individual events with a win in the 400 IM.  At the south end of the facility, Else Prassterink, Lindsay Gizzi, and Grace Leonard swept the podium in platform diving.  Also, Gizzi, Jiselle Miller, and Leonard took the whole podium in 3m springboard.

And finally, Julia Dennis, Ella Welch, Karoline Barrett, and Paige Kuwata finished first in the 200 free relay.

It was really just a dominating performance for the Cards on Senior Day.  The men's side of the competition also won in similarly dominating fashion.

Basketball Gameday




Now we get to look ahead to today's event.  Basketball is in Syracuse to take on the revamped Orange.  Gone are the days when you could hear crickets in the Carrier Dome with crowd of under 200 in a facility that seats 33,000 for basketball.  These days Syracuse are drawing anywhere from about 1,500 to 3,000 for WBB games.  Crowds that size are probably still lost in what is now called the JMA Wireless Dome, those are respectable numbers.

So where does Syracuse stand in the Atlantic Chaos Conference?  They're currently in 9th, with a .500 record of 5-5, 14-7 overall.  The two non-conference losses are to Penn State and Purdue, neither of which strike me as being particularly egregious, but looking at the non-conference win column, nothing really jumps out at me as being particularly impressive either.

In conference, a previous loss to us, along with losses to NC State, Notre Dame, and Duke are not terrible but a loss to Georgia Tech is starting to look a bit bad as Georgia Tech continues to settle towards the bottom of the standings.  The best conference win for them so far is against Clemson, who are at 4-6 in conference, so not spectacular, but not terrible, either.

The last time we face the 'Cuse, Hailey Van Lith went off for 24 points with a handful of rebounds and assists to boot.  Olivia Cochrane, Morgan Jones, and Chrislyn Carr all tallied double digit points as well.

On the Syracuse side, Teisha Hyman dropped 27 on us in that game.  The last time a Syracuse player played like that against us, she was wearing a UofL jersey the next year and went on to be drafted in the WNBA.  Dyaisha Fair is generally the scoring threat for the Orange, averaging almost 20 ppg, with Hyman averaging just shy of 12.

The ACC Network linear channel is carrying the game today with a noon start.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast






It was back to four of a kind with Case, Daryl, Paulie, and myself for the CCRHP yesterday.  Lots of basketball discussion, as we picked apart what's going on with this team, and why it's struggling compared to what we typically expect from UofL WBB.

Check it out at anchor.fm:

3 comments:

  1. Go Cards forever let's win this game get it a good effort Love Cardinals basketball.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A good win and needed, quality opponent on the road. Jones has a sprained ankle.

    pauli

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Ville had a lineup out there that worked. The question is, what's up with Van Lith?

    ReplyDelete

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