For women's soccer "score more" is the directive -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

CARDS NEED TO FIND A SCORING THREAT FOR 2023

Louisville Women's Soccer kicks off their 2023 campaign on Thursday night this week, bringing in Indiana State for a 7:30 p.m. contest in Dr. Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium. Despite the relative proximity of the two schools (it's less than a three hour drive from Terre Haute to Louisville) -- they've only played once, the 2016 Cards winning that one 4-0 over the visiting Sycamores.  

Kaela Dickerman had two goals in the contest and the Cards dominated offensively with a 21-2 shot advantage and a 13-1 shot-on-goal edge.

  

Last year, ISU (who plays in the Missouri Valley or "the Valley" conference) had a 2-11-3 record, not getting their first win until their ninth game of the season. The defeated Evansville and Illinois State. 

The match will be new head coach Paul Lawrence's debut at ISU...Lawrence was at Florida Southern College prior to coming to Terre Haute. I was not familiar with Florida Southern College, but found out that they are in Lakeland and are a private college with an enrollment of about 3,000

 

Lee

 

The school has produced two golfers that made the PGA -- Lee Jantzen and Rocco Mediate. Two ISU student-athletes hail from the Louisville area...Katey Yankey is a senior midfielder from Floyds Knobs, IN . She has four career goals and Audrey Roberts is a freshman who played at Oldham County High School last year. 

Scoring is key for the Cards. They tallied just 13 goals last season and four of those were from now-graduated Maisie Whitsett. Karsyn Cherry, a defender, had three goals and does return...but the Cards will need to find some forwards and midfielders who can put the ball n the net.

Ravin Alexander returns for her graduate season and has two career goals in her four years. She's also played a lot of defense but seems to be happier on the offensive side of things. I'll also watch and see how freshmen European players Viktoria Wik and Fiona Gaiber (pronounced gay-sir) do for the Cards. Wik was on the U-17 Denmark squad and Gaiber was on the Germany U17 squad. Gaiber is actually spelled with that weird "B" that is used in some European alphabets and sounds like "ss". Maya Anand also comes to the program as a fifth-year player, she scored 10 goals in her four years at Binghamton. 

We'll see what else develops out of this squad...Brooke Dardano could be an essential attacker...she had an excellent game when the Cards defeated top 25 Memphis last season. 

The main emphasis needs to be on scoring. Louisville averaged 0.81 goals in 2022 and that definitely needs to improve. Defense only allowed 22, which is well under two goals a game and defense looks strong again. It's just the tricky matter of putting the ball past the goalie and into the net

Maybe we'll find out more at the Fall Sports Media Day Tuesday on campus. Karen Ferguson Dayes will be there with a couple of players, along with men's soccer, Field Hockey , Volleyball and Track and Field. I'm attending and will report on that in my Wednesday column.

paulie.  

The Cards