More Smart Cards and Pro Cards -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

T&F and Rowing Athletes Earn Academic All-District Honors

The College Sports Communicators (CSC) continues to field its academic all district teams, with track and field and rowing the latest sports to be announced. As with any other CSC All-District athletes, these six will advance to the ballot to be named to the CSC Academic All-America teams. 

The latest Cards to join the ranks of those lists are Soledad Jean, Carly Pujol, Synclair Savage, Aliyah Welter, and Zoe Yeast of the track and field squad and Ellee Grosser of the rowing team. None of these athletes are strangers to academic accolades. 

Jean was named to the All-ACC Academic Honor Roll last season and made it to the NCAA Regional Round in the high jump. Pujol also made it to the regionals this year in the pole vault and has been named to the All-ACC Academic Honor Roll three times. She was on the USTFCCCA All-Academic team in 2021. Savage is headed to the NCAA Championship meet in long jump and is the anchor for Louisville's 4x100 team. She made the All-ACC Outdoor Academic Team last year and was named to the Honor Roll. Welter will be in Austin next week for the third straight year trying to win a championship in pole vault. She graduated in 2022 and has been competing while pursuing an MBA. She was twice on the USTFCCCA All-Academic team, earned the ACC Postgraduate Scholarship this year, and was named to the Honor Roll four times and the All-ACC Academic Team a whopping five times. Yeast bowed out of competition at the ACC Championships where she competed in discus and hammer throws. She has been named to the Honor Roll twice.

We don't talk a lot about individuals on the rowing team because it is a team sport where individual performance is hardly considered. Ellee Grosser is one of those individuals who has a special role on the team, as she is a coxswain, the team member that "drives" the boat while everyone else rows. Grosser is the coxswain for Louisville's First Varsity Eight boat, making her effectively the team captain. Her academic accolades are too numerous to list here. You can check out the gocards site for the exhaustive list if you'd like. Grosser has maintained a 4.0 GPA through four years while majoring in "molecular and cellular in developmental biology". So... yeah. I barely made it through my two required chemistry classes and, fortunately, organic chemistry wasn't on my flight plan. My last biology class was during freshman year of high school. Major props to Grosser, who could manage an extremely difficult major along with the rigors of athletics and still pull out a perfect academic record.

WBB Cards in the Pros

All three of Louisville's representatives in the WNBA were in action last night, with two seeing time on the floor and two picking up team wins. Myisha Hines-Allen still hasn't returned to the court for the Mystics, but Washington snuck out a one-point victory over the Dallas Wings. The Mystics led by two with six seconds to go when they were fouled and sank both free throws. A buzzer beating three by Dallas set the final score of 75-74.

Chicago also played a one-point game, but Dana Evans' Sky team was on the losing end of this one, with the Liberty taking the 77-76 win. Evans played just under 15 minutes, the most of a non-starter for Chicago, but she was only able to score six on two of six shooting with a made free throw. She dished out three assists but added two fouls and two turnovers. 

AD had their biggest game of the year for the Dream, who tried to swamp the Las Vegas Aces with depth, but their 13 points weren't enough as the Dream fell 92-87. AD added a rebound and an assist with no fouls and no turnovers in 12 minutes. They were 5-7 from the floor and 3-4 from beyond the arc. Vegas's win gives them the longest win streak to open a season by a defending champion (five) since the Lynx won their first 13 games in 2016.

In other pro Cards news, Mo Reid was named the MVP of the Saudie League while helping her team to a league championship. Two more Cards signed pro contracts as well, with Norika Konno returning home to play for the Denso Iris in the Women's Japan Basketball League and Liz Dixon signing with the Connecticut Sun. Dixon played 31 minutes over three games on an emergency replacement contract with the Mercury last month. The contract with the Sun is so new that we aren't able to confirm all of the details yet. Congratulations to all the Cards in the pros!

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We'll be short a player or two today but three is enough to field a team. The summer slump is just about fully on us, with just the track and field national championships remaining on the competition calendar coming up next week. We'll find our way through today's show, though, so be sure to join us. 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!

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Until next time, Go Cards!

Case