ACC Championship Season -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Track and Field Hold 8th

After a successful start to the ACC Championship meet on Thursday, Louisville women's track and field didn't make much impact on day two. On the men's side, Louisville got a big win in the Decathlon from Paul Kallenberg. His ACC title came after setting a facility record and placing second in the all-time school record for total points in the event. The points from his victory helped pull Louisville up to 7th on the men's team side. On the women's side, Louisville fell to 8th. 

Scott looks to repeat her
victory from 2022

The Cards got second place finishes from Synclair Savage (long jump) and Aliyah Welter (pole vault) on Thursday to help them accrue 19 points, good for third overall. Carly Pujol scored a seventh-place finish in the pole vault to score the remaining points for the team. Katie Martin also set a new school-record in the 400M hurdles (breaking her own mark) to qualify for today's final. 

On Friday, Louisville saw three Cards set new personal bests. Madeline Castleberry (3000m steeplechase), Alba Cuns Iglesias (triple jump), and Brooklyn Hammons (shot put) all broke their own records, but only Cuns Iglesias scored for the team, taking home eighth to score the Cards' only point on the day. Saturday will see the Cards compete in seven of the twelve events. Those will start at noon, after a change to the schedule. Emily Scott, Jenna Hensley, and Soledad Jean will take on the field in the high jump, with Scott looking to defend her title. Zoe Yeast and Brooklynn Hammons will compete in the discus throw to round out the field events. On the track, the Cards will compete in the 4x100, 4x400, 400m hurdles, 200m, and 5000m races, with two runners in the distance race. 

Rowing Sends One Boat to Grand Final

The ACC Rowing Championship is being held at Lake Wheeler in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yesterday saw prelim action with Louisville having four boats compete. The Cards sent three Varsity Eight boats and one Varsity Four boat. It's the III Varsity Eight squad that qualified for today's Grand Final, after they edged UNC by just 0.4 seconds over a 7-minute race. Odds are that by the time you're seeing this, the races have already concluded, with action scheduled to begin at 8:05 this morning. Louisville's other three boats will all compete in the Petite Finals after finishing below the cutoff for the Grand Finals in their respective heats.

ACC Softball Continues

Despite Louisville's knockout, the ACC Softball Championship continues through the weekend, with the results potentially having an impact on Louisville's tournament hopes. With the long softball season, single elimination tournaments won't likely have much impact on resume building for teams that aren't actually participating, but you never know. That's particularly true in the event that a bid is stolen. 

That isn't particularly likely to happen this year. After knocking off Louisville in the 4-5 game, Virginia Tech had the great honor of being run-ruled by the top-seeded Seminoles. FSU took care of business with a 9-1 win in six innings. With VT being the only team seeded lower than Louisville playing on Friday, there wasn't much chance of anyone other than them having to "steal" a bid, as the top-three teams in the league should be comfortably in.

Photo via ACC

Taking on the 3rd-ranked FSU squad will be Duke. Outside of the shocking pair of losses to Notre Dame, Duke and FSU are the only two teams to beat Louisville in conference this season. The Cards didn't play Clemson or Virginia Tech in the regular season. Duke had to get through the Tigers to advance, and they did so in fairly spectacular fashion: by getting a no-hitter from a freshman. Cassidy Curd is one of two Blue Devils that kept Sarah Gordon out of the top-ten finalists for the Freshman of the Year Award. Perhaps someone should have told the ACC voters that, since Gordon won the league's honor. Either way, Curd threw 113 pitches to earn her 16th win of the season, ringing up eight strikeouts and hitting two batters. The two HBP were the only marks that kept the game from being perfect. The Duke offense did just enough to support the pitching effort, scoring one run each in the second and third innings to lead to the 2-0 win. 

Today's championship will be played at 1PM on ESPN2.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We'll be back on the airwaves (Kind of? Maybe? I'm a little shaky on the physics of the internet.) this week after taking Derby Day off. There will be just four of us, so you can stop holding your breath if you listened to Daryl yesterday. Jared will be out as he attends commencement for his wife-to-be. We'll have plenty to keep us busy as spring sports seasons wind down and we try to forecast softball's NCAA hopes. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

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RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

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