Volleyball Sweeps; FH Falls -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Luper Hits Milestone as Louisville Beats Wake

Charitie Luper picked up her 1,000th career kill yesterday as she helped lead the Cards to a decently simple sweep of Wake Forest. Louisville's win moved them to 15-2 and they remain undefeated in conference play. Luper had nine kills, which was good for second on the team and third in the match. Louisville will be back in action tomorrow in L&N Federal Credit Union Arena against NC State. 

The Cards got off to a bit of a slow start in the first set, with Wake Forest taking an early 7-3 lead. Louisville would fight back to tie the match at nine before taking their first lead at 10-9. The Cards wouldn't give up that lead for the remainder of the set, slowly adding points to the deficit until they got hung up at 19. Wake Forest won four straight to make the score 19-18, but Louisville won six of the final eight points to put the set away with a 25-20 win.

The second saw a similar difficulty separating, though the Cards didn't have to dig themselves out of an early hole. The two teams traded points early before Louisville started to distance themselves a bit more after both teams reached 10. Again, Louisville hit a slight wall at around the 20 point mark and Wake was able to cut into the lead a bit. Just like the first set, though, Louisville buckled down over the final stretch and won the set 25-19. 

After the halftime break, Louisville was no longer interested in playing games with their food. The Cards won the first four points and stretched that advantage to a 10-2 lead. The Demon Deacons managed a small run at that point to bring the score to within 11-6, but they would get no closer. Louisville ran away with the deciding set, taking the third 25-12. The Cards hit .481 in that final set, compared to just .143 for the Deacs. 

Overall, Louisville dominated on the hitting side with a .349 percentage. Wake hit just .122 over the course of the match, as their .031 first set dragged down their average. Louisville committed just 11 errors and they had only one in the third set. Louisville also led the way in both aces and blocks. The Cards had 10 blocks, with five of these being solo. Louisville also won the battle at the serving line outright, as they had three aces and six serving errors compared to Wake's two and eleven. 

Luper's nine kills came on .333 hitting and she added two solo blocks, a block assist, and seven digs. Anna DeBeer led Louisville with 11 kills on .391 hitting while also picking up a block assist, two aces, and five digs. Reese Robins hit .462 with six kills and no errors. 

Louisville will take on NC State tomorrow at 1PM. The Wolfpack are 10-5 this season and 5-2 in conference. Their two losses came on the Pacific coast, where they lost to Cal and Stanford by a combined score of 6-1. Surprisingly, the sweep came at the hands of Cal. State's wins have come against the Virginias, Duke, UNC, and Notre Dame, so it's hard to put your finger on this team. Louisville shouldn't have any major issues getting by, but it's best to give everyone your best shot. The match will be carried on ACC Network Extra.

Senior Day Goes South for Field Hockey

Justine Sowry let her disappointment be known after yesterday's 3-0 loss, lamenting Louisville's inability to win 50/50 balls and expressing frustration with a lack of fundamentals. The Cards were playing their final game of the season at Trager Stadium and bringing in a familiar foe in Duke. At the end of the day, Duke walked out with a victory, and Louisville's slide continued. 

The Cards played the Blue Devils close for the first quarter, but it was early in the second that things came unglued. To add insult to injury, it was an exciting former Cardinal, Charlie van Oirschot, that kicked off the scoring for Duke. The Blue Devils added to their advantage seven minutes later to make it 2-0 and it would stay that way until shortly into the fourth when they scored an insurance goal on a penalty corner.

Louisville was outshot 16-6 with a disadvantage of 10-2 in shots on target. Of course, it was easy for Duke to get so many more shots as they held an 8-2 advantage in penalty corners. Louisville continued to struggle in the midfield, finding themselves on the back foot throughout the game. 

Louisville honored seniors Filippa Niebuhr and Caroline Pusey after the game, and we have appreciated all those two have done during their time with the Cards. Louisville has two games remaining in the regular season, and we'll see what happens after that. The Cards hit the road to take on Cal and UC Davis next weekend to close out the year. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We'll have three on the horn again with a noon start for football occupying Daryl and Jared. Just like the last few weeks, we've got excitement in volleyball and not quite as much joy in soccer and field hockey. We'll do all we can to keep it positive, though, as we work to uphold the mission of Cardinal Couple. 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