Softball vs Duke Preview -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL 

Hello again all!  

Back to my regular day of writing ! Love hearing that you all are attending some spring sporting events and that most of the city of Louisville has regained their power.  It really is starting to feel like Spring is in the air, another Bats baseball season is just around the corner.   

Softball

Louisville Softball will open ACC play with a 6 p.m. matchup at Duke on Friday.  Action will continue on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Cards and the Blue Devils will wrap up the weekend Sunday at 2 p.m. The first two games of the series will air on ACC Network Extra while Sunday's finale will be televised on the ACC Network.

Photos by: Jared Anderson 

Does anyone else recall the heartbreaking 4-3 loss to Duke in the ACC conference tournament held at Ulmer in 2021?  I sure do... the Dukies went on to win the conference title against Clemson. Taylor Roby, Elena Ornelas and Makayla Hurst were Cardinals on that 2021 squad, I'm sure they remember

The Cardinals are 14-6 over 1-1 on the road and 2-4 against ranked opponents.

Duke leads the all time and newly founded series 6-3. The two squads last met on Feb. 19, 2022 where Duke won 6-3 in Gainesville at Florida's T-Mobile Classic.

Duke is 18-4 overall, 6-1 at home, 2-1 in the ACC and 4-3 against ranked teams.  The Blue Devils are coming off a 5-4 win in extra innings (9) against Louisville's next opponent, the Charlotte 49ers.   Duke gave up 3 runs in the bottom of the 7th to force extras.  

Ana Gold has belted out a team-high six home runs with 25 RBIs for the BlueDevils.  Gold has homered in four of the last five games, including three-straight games and tallied her seventh multi-RBI game of the year.  

D'Auna Jennings leads the team offensively with a .426 batting average and six stolen bases. Jennings finished the night going 4-for-5 with one run scored in her last outing against Charlotte.

As a pitching staff, Duke allowed 6 hits, 7 walks and 4 HBPs against Charlotte. Lillie Walker picked up the win but Jala Wright carries the majority of the load in games striking out 6 and giving up 3 runs on a hit and 4 walks against 20 batters faced against the 49ers. Wright totals 53 strikeouts in 51.1 innings of work and a 2.28 ERA on the season. Cassidy Curd also carries a 6-0 record and a 1.36 ERA with 48 Ks in 33 innings.

If the Cards can steal a win or better yet win the series in Durham,  they could find themselves entering the Top 25 in the first time in quite some time and in excellent position to start out conference play.   I look forward to catching the Cards on the diamond soon! 

YOUR THOUGHTS?

We'll be having a CARDINAL COUPLE Pick 'Em for the women's NCAA Tournament again this year, and I can actually say "March Madness" as a descriptive way to refer to it without basketball purist wagging a finger and chiding me that the  phrase refers to the men's tournament only. That was always a bunch of nonsense. Yes, the boys weren't baffled enough by trying to pick a winner out of 15 teams, they're thinking they can conquer a slate of almost 70 schools. 

But (pardon me, Lenny Kravitz from borrowing this from you) WHAT I REALLY WANT TO KNOW is who do you think will win the Women's March Madness. ARE YOU GOING TO GO MY WAY?  Just a quick thought on it in the comments section would be great...as we draw closer to Selection Sunday. Are you going with "the chalk" in South Carolina, are you "Cardinals all the way" or did someone like Virginia Tech, Iowa or Stanford catch your eye in the conference tournaments. Maybe you got a longshot here? Let's call it our pre-NCAA WBB Tournament "heat check". Sound off !!

Enjoy your Friday and catch ya next time! 

As Always 

Go Cards 

~Daryl