Field Hockey Opens Exhibition Season With a Win -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Drop Bellarmine 4-0 in Extended Exhibition

Louisville field hockey opened their season yesterday afternoon with an exhibition game against Bellarmine. Whether Louisville was on the road or at home is a matter of linguistic preference, as the teams share Trager Stadium as their home facility. After picking up the win yesterday, Louisville is truly on the road today, as they head up to Athens, Ohio to take on the Bobcats of Ohio University in their final scrimmage tomorrow.

Bellarmine won four games last year, their fourth in D1. Their head coach was MAC coach of the year in 2021, a season in which they also won four games with two of those being in conference. In 2022, Erin Schneidtmiller joined the Bellarmine staff as an assistant coach. As I mentioned previously, the home locker room would have stayed the same, so hopefully it wasn't too much of a transition.

There isn't much out there about this game, since Louisville doesn't typically post box scores for exhibition games. We did have Jared on site, though, so we've got at least the final results and the makeup of the match. Louisville was mostly unthreatened in this one, and they jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first half. It would probably be safe to assume that the Cards tried a few different lineups and introduced some new players in the second half, as Louisville only extended their lead to 4-0 by the end of regulation.

Because field hockey is played to a result in every game, it is important to practice the various post-regulation methods for when they're inevitably employed during the season. As a result, the two teams played one overtime period before going to a shootout. Remember that field hockey overtime is played with a reduced field player count, leading to different strategies and play styles. Neither team scored in the overtime and Louisville finished with a 4-3 advantage in the shootout. 

After the match Jared was able to catch up with Coach Sowry to get her thoughts on the team's performance. You can listen for yourself below, but one of the interesting items she mentioned was that she'll play almost an entirely different squad tomorrow. Jared was also able to throw Coach off a bit with a question that he could have only gotten away with given the final result. The sisters Plumb also got a special shoutout.

Postgame with Coach Sowry

The Cards are back in action tomorrow at noon, though we're likely to find out very little about that match with it being on the road. Their regular season will get underway next Friday when they host Northeastern at 5 PM. Bellarmine will actually open the regular season action at Trager when they host St. Louis at noon that day. Northeastern will also stay in town for the weekend, playing Bellarmine on Sunday. To make things more confusing, Louisville will travel to Evanston to play Northwestern on the 27th.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We should have four in the booth once more as Daryl remains in full house prep mode. We'll have plenty to talk about now that there has been some on field action for Louisville, and I'm sure we'll get some preview time for the volleyball red and black scrimmage, which Jeff will talk about in his column tomorrow. 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

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case