CARDS BLOW OUT AND THEN HANG ON VS. CLEMSON
It was a tale of two halves in Sunday's WBB game against Clemson .
Louisville came out gangbusters in the first twenty minutes, led by 30 points late in the second quarter and looked to be on their way to a huge blowout over the 14-13, 8-10 Tigers. You can credit a lot of the UofL superiority to the Cards lights out three-point shooting from Norika Konno and Hailey Van Lith, and a defense that held Clemson to 34% shooting. Creating Tiger turnovers was huge and capitalizing on them even larger -- the Cards created a 20-0 points off turnovers advantage to lead 51-22 after twenty minutes.
It was sort of a chess match for most of the first quarter, Louisville found themselves up 7-6 with 3:36 to play after a Eno Inyang Clemson jumper. Then, someone lit the fuse. Liz Dixon converted inside, Van Lith dropped a free throw shot and Konno buried a three to make it 16-8. The Cards would complete the 13-2 run with two Morgan Jones free throws and a Kasa Robinson jumper at the buzzer. 20-6 and Clemson looked confused.
The Cards would tack on five points to begin the second quarter on a Chrislyn Carr three and Jones jumper. It was 30-10 after Robinson scored again and Merissah connected on a three-pointer. No one would have blamed the Clemson bus driver for getting up and heading to team parking to start the bus at that point.
To their credit, the Tigers didn't completely fall apart and were still down, but by just 22, after Van Lith rolled in a jumper with 3:24 until half time. The Cards had one more spurt left in them as halftime approached, though...back-to-back threes from Van Lith and Konno and then another Van Lith three had the total at 49-19 and Josie Williams put back in the paint completed the 11-4 half-ending run and the Cards had a 51-22 lead at half. A 31-14 second quarter advantage for UofL and the Cards had shot a sizzling 60% in the second quarter.
A slow third quarter start for Louisville, not scoring for the first 4:18 of the session bfore finally getting a couple of Robinson free throws to drop. It's not that Louisville was in danger of losing their massive lead, but Clemson had their hatchet out and were chopping away. Makaya Elmore had a huge quarter with nine points for the Tigers in the third, what was just as impressive was that Clemson had held Louisville to eight points in eight minutes. It was 62-41 Louisville with a minute left in the quarter before the Cards got a follow up by Carr and a Cochran jumper to to take a 66-43 lead into the final quarter.
If there was anything memorable about the final quarter, it was the five-minute stretch where the Cards scored just one point. UofL had a 75-52 at the 7:02 mark of the quarter after a Russell jumper. They scored a free throw over the next five minutes and it was a 76-67 game with 2:17 to play. Credit Clemson for the 15-1 run on the Cards and, although it looked like the Cards had a substantial lead to hang on with, there were more than a few nervous people left in the KFC YUM! Center. A Cochran jumper with 2:02 to play broke the scoreless streak. The Cards would add two Russell free throws the remainder of the way and clinch the 81-69 win.
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| (Someone get on the story Hailey's accepted a proposal...fast!) |
THE FRED REPORT
FREE THROWS -- The Cards took 13 free throws and made nine of then for 69.2% That's just a tad lower than the 70% we mandate for a letter...they did go 4-5 in the crucial fourth quarter, no one attempted more than four, but no letter here.
REBOUNDS -- Clemson took the boards battle 39-34, despite Cochran gathering 12 for the Cards. No letter here.
EFFORT/EXECUTION -- Louisville shot a decent 48.4% for the game and had an impressine 23 assists to go with the makes. 15 turnovers is a bit high and you can't like getting outscored 44-24 in the paint. I do like the 50% from three point range though, so I'll award a small case "e"
DEFENSE -- The first half Cards defense was spectacular, allowing just 22 points. Paint defense overall wasn't that spectacular, though, getting outscored 44-24 and Clemson did climb out of a slow shooting start to finish at 43.8%. Still, the defense was good enough to win and we'll allow a CAPITAL "D" for that.
FINAL FRED REPORT: _-_-E-d
The Cards return to action Thursday with a trip to Notre Dame.
THEY SAID IT:
LAX DOWNS COLORADO 12-5
Louisville got a career high four goals from Izzy Seikel and Sara Addeche turned in another impressive performance at goalkeeper as the LaxCards beat visiting and #25 ranked Colorado 12-5 Sunday afternoon at the Louisville Lacrosse Stadium.
Louisville held a 5-1 lead at the half, with four different Cards scoring. The Buffs would battle back to start the second half with three straight goals, but UofL would go on a 5-0 run to finish the quarter and hold a 10-4 advantage after three quarters.
The Cards would add two more goals in the fourth quarter before Colorado ended the scoring...it was Louisville, though, who ended up with the win to go 1-1 on the season.
Cardinal Couple did not have anyone in attendance to cover this one, with the changed WBB time, but we congratulate Louisville Lacrosse on getting a convincing win over a top 25 foe. (This post game audio from UofL sports, not us.)
PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON
paulie.
The first half cards were hitting on all cylinders the threes were raining and good defense the first half.
ReplyDeleteThe second half they didn't play with the same intensity on defense.
I guess they were so surprised to be out front by so many points that they forgot to play defense,but a good ACC win this time of year.
Go Cards!!
Hello Friends!
ReplyDeleteArthur Here!
Well, you all ran us out of the YUM CENTER early in this one and we could never recover. Like Walz says, wins are the thing now, no matter how you get them. We did a few good things but not nearly enough to make iit competitive. Good luck against the Irish. Glad Konno finally had a big effort. She's a treasure.
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#1 Clemson Fan
Arthur
Greer, SC
Finally Hailey found that range again, hope it keeps up👍
ReplyDeleteYes, the Baby Face Killah!
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