A Busy Sunday - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball

 

Greetings from northern Kentucky where the VolleyCards are in the midst of the fourth year of a four team home, home, home, and home, setup with South Dakota, Missouri, and Northern Kentucky.

In this final year, it's the Norse's turn to host.  The Cards lost their first set of the four year set of matches on Friday, but made South Dakota pay for it in the fourth set.

Yesterday, Louisville returned to form with a sweep of Missouri, though that conclusion was not foregone.  The Cards took the sets 25-20, 25-21, 25-18.

In the first set, the teams mostly traded points before the Cards started pulling ahead later in the set for the 25-20 win.

 

The second set, however, saw UofL digging a bit of a deficit, being down by 15-9 about midway through.  Subjectively, the team just wasn't playing clean crisp ball, particularly struggling in serve receive.  Later in the set, they started getting cleaner serve receptions and turned the score back to their favor eventually getting the win.

The third set again was a back and forth affair at the beginning, but the late set play ended up being a set of runs as the Cards pulled ahead on an 8-3 stretch.  Missouri responded with a small run, and after a sideline chat called by DBK, the Cards finished out the set in solid fashion.

I mentioned the serve receive struggles above, and subjectively I do feel like this is the biggest weakness of the team at the moment.  With the team playing the 6-2 offense, which some of us have started to call a 6-3 in honor of Elena Scott's bonus setting presence on the court, the coaching staff has to conserve their substitutions to make sure they don't run out (15 are allowed per set).  That means we're seeing fewer defensive specialists, such as Kamden Schrand, Jessica Drapp, Molly Urban, and Sam Untied, subbing in for hitters as they rotate to the back row.

The coaching staff did bring Kamden Schrand in to replace Anna DeBeer in the back row late in one of the sets, which helped some with serve receive.

The Cards will be back in action at Regent's Hall on the campus of NKU today at 2pm.  Streaming is available only on ESPN+.

The match against NKU really shouldn't be terribly competitive, and let's hope that statement doesn't come back to bite me.  The Norse can be a scrappy team, but ultimately they're not generally playing at the level we are.

Another Personal Note

The volleyball team bussed out to the home of Kamden Schrand's father and step-mother.  They hosted, with support of Kamden's mother and step-father, and Jessica Drapps parents, the team, and other family members in northern KY for the weekend for a meal and socializing.  You may have seen a picture of the team on social media yesterday evening gathering around a lighted "Go Cards" sign.  That was taken on the Schrand's backyard basketball/pickleball court.

They very graciously extended an invitation to me as well, so I got to enjoy about as perfect of weather as you could possibly ask for hanging out with the team, coaching staff, and various player's families.  That included the whole crowd gathering around one of the TV's in the Schrand's basement to watch the ending of the volleyball match where the ACC's Miami Hurricanes upset top-ranked (but not for long) Texas.  A good time was had by all, and I am truly appreciative of the inclusion by the Schrand's and others.

Also In Action Today

Field Hockey

Field Hockey is back in the friendly confines of Trager Stadium and will be hosting Penn at 1:30pm.

Sowry's squad is off to a little bit of a rough start, after the loss Friday to Princeton, and on top of the double-overtime loss to Maryland last week, they find themselves at 1-2.  It's still very early in the season, of course, but this Field Hocke.y program doesn't often find itself with a below .500 record, so they've got some work to do.

Streaming is on ACC Network Extra, so if you're on DirecTV, you'll need to make some alternate arrangements if you want to see this one.  Of course, it's going to be a beautiful day, so if you're in the Louisville area, the alternate arrangements could be going out to Trager to enjoy it in person.

Golf

Golf is competing in the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational in Lexington, hosted by UK.  No video coverage for this seems to be available.

Soccer

Soccer will finish off the weekend, also on Floyd Street, hosting Dayton at 7pm in Lynn Stadium on campus.

Again, video coverage on ACC Network Extra, like Field Hockey, those alternate arrangements could be going to the game in person as it is similarly free to attend.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The CCRHP crew is all over the place this weekend, and I stupidly forgot to grab my headset on the way out of the door to boot, so no CCRHP this week.

We should be back at it next week.

What would have been my final thoughts:  If you're not paying attention to the overall volleyball scene, beyond just the matches that UofL is playing in, you should check it out.  It is absolute chaos at the top of the rankings.  Of course, early season rankings are always a bit fluid, but nearly every top team has taken at least one big upset.  Our upset loss to Penn State (4 vs 7) looks downright tame by comparison.  Texas is sitting at 2-2, Wisconsin started out 0-3 (and the two wins they've accumulated since then were fierce five set battles), Nebraska lost to new ACC entrant SMU.  About the only teams who have escaped unscathed so far have been Stanford and Pitt.  Neither have faced the strongest schedule so far, though they both have a win over what are nominally considered pretty good teams.  It's pretty likely that one of them will be the number one ranked team when the new poll is released tomorrow afternoon.  Chaos reigns.

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JMcA