Sunday, June 30, 2024

International Volleyball - Sunday Cardinal Couple

NORCECA Final 6

sfia Maldanado Diaz

Please don't ask me why the event is called "Final 6" as it's pretty much just one of many NORCECA tournaments. A few weeks ago they held the NORCECA Final 4 with an overlapping but different set of teams.

In any case, the event is about to wrap up, with just the Championship and Bronze medal matches still to be competed today.

The Cards have four rooting interests in the overall tournament. As was covered previously, Elena Scott and Cara Cresse are competing with Team USA. Additionally, Sofia Maldonado Diaz is continuing her representation with the Mexican National Team, while former Cardinal, and Cardinal Forever, Wilma Rivera is continuing her role with the Puerto Rican Team.

Maldonado Diaz, is transferring to UofL from Arizona but due to national team commitments hasn't made it to campus, yet. Of course, the last time we had a 5th year transfer coming in late due to national team commitments was Raquel Lázaro who was busy playing for Team Spain, and she worked out pretty well for us.

Team USA came out atop Group A by defeating both Mexico and Canada. Mexico beat Canada to be the other team to advance to the elimination stages. In Group B the hosting Dominican Republic came out on top with Puerto Rico being the other team to advance. Those results mean that the US play Puerto Rico last night while the Dominican Republic played Mexico.

The US and Dominican Republic won their matches last night, advancing to the championship match today, while Mexico and Puerto Rico will face off for the Bronze.

Scott and Cresse have only seen limited time on the floor, but have played well in the time that they have had. I will argue that at least Scott should be seeing more time on the floor. The other libero on the team is Lexi Rodriguez (Nebraska), who, unquestionably is a good libero...but Scott is better in my opinion. When you add in Scott's undeniably better ability to be a "backup setter", it's clear to me that she should be getting more minutes on the floor. Similarly, with Cresse, in addition to being the equal of the other middles on the squad she is clearly a superior server to them, and given that libero's can't serve in international play, good serving middles are extremely valuable. But USA Volleyball, in their infinite wisdom, decided to put a second year Men's Volleyball head coach in charge of the team, and his perceptions and choices seem to be a bit different than mine. (There's a rant to be shared here about the extreme political nature of getting playing time with USA Volleyball, but I'll skip that for now.) Come on USA Volleyball, do better.

You can watch the championship match with Cresse and Scott on Youtube this evening at 7pm. Youtube's search function has not worked well to surface the live videos from this event, but I have found success searching for "NORCECA Final 6 women 2024 live". The bronze medal match, which will feature Maldonado Diaz and Rivera, will begin at 5pm.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The CCRHP had a foursome yesterday, with Case, Jared, Paulie, and myself teeing it up. Mostly we talked about basketball, and how we expect this squad, with lots of new faces, to come together and gel. We did sprinkle in some news from other sports, including some of the above Volleyball material.

Find it at it's Spotify home: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/A-Cardinal-Couple-Quiz-e2lf2lh

JMcA

2 comments:

Anonymous6/30/2024 10:33 AM
Let me rant a little more. I think it is disgraceful that USA Volleyball appointed a MEN'S coach to this team. I don't even think the coach must be a woman, but I think they must be a women's coach. Of all the volleyball teams at the collegiate level, you will never convince me that this coach (he might be a good person/coach) is the correct selection. Oh, and yeah, Scott is the better libero - no doubt.
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Anonymous6/30/2024 1:46 PM
Da Meske is a very good coach and i would love to see him get a program somewhere. Even Louisville
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