And They're Off! - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Spring Sports are Off and Running

OK, the phrase used in the title is usually associated with horse-racing, which isn't really a thing we cover here, even if Paulie has previously done some work in that space, but spring sports have gotten underway, and we here at Cardinal Couple are enthusiastically diving in, particularly in this, the Winter/Spring overlap of seasons.  And we have two sports in action today, representative of that overlap with Basketball and Softball.

 

Basketball Still Looks to the West

Coming off the upset win over Cal, the Cards host the other west coast entry to the ACC with Stanford on the other side of the tip at noon.

 

Stanford has traditionally been thought of as a school that has lots of excellent women's sports programs, and basketball has been a part of that with the long tenure of Tara VanDerveer.

 

VanDerveer retired after last season, however, ceding the head coaching spot to previous associate head coach and Stanford alumna Kate Paye.  Paye has a long association with Stanford, despite stints working with other organizations such as Pepperdine, San Diego State, as well as a professional playing career in the ABL and WNBA.  One could say that Paye's association with Stanford is life-long, having been born at Stanford Hospital.

 

Paye does face some struggles, however.   In this, her first year at the helm, the team is sitting at 11-11 overall, and 3-8 in conference.  The non-conference schedule for the trees is mostly unremarkable, they have wins over Washington State, Gonzaga, UC Davis, and UC San Diego, and losses to Indiana, Ohio State, and LSU.

 

In conference, the Cardinal with no "s" has taken losses to Cal twice, SMU, Clemson (in OT), NC State, Duke, UNC, and Notre Dame, which it has to be said, are all pretty good teams.  It does, however, signal that Stanford really isn't up there with the top echelon teams in the ACC this year.  Wins over Pitt, Wake Forest, and Florida State, are not particularly impressive.

 

Only two players average double-digit scoring, Nunu Agara, and Elena Bosgana, with a couple more, Brooke Demetre, and Chloe Clardy scoring nine points or more per game.

 

Stanford overall loses in the steals, blocks, and turnovers statistical categories to their opponents, but watch for Bogsana and Clardy in the passing lanes.  The Cardinal does share well, and are disciplined, with fewer personal fouls, and more assists than opponents.

 

The Cardinals with the "s" will need to watch out a bit for three point shooting as just about everyone from Palo Alto has pretty decent stats from beyond the arc.  Three point shooting percentage is about 32% or better for just about everyone on the team that gets significant playing time.

 

It's a slightly earlier than usual start today, with a noon tip thanks to TV coverage on ESPN2.

 

Softball

Softball is two days into their season and they have two wins, which sounds great until you also realize that they're two days into their season and they also have two losses.  Well, it's a long season and we're at the very beginning of it.

 

Softball frequently has double headers early in the season, and this weekend is no exception.  Playing five games over the weekend in "THE Spring Games" (their capitalization), the Cards played two yesterday against Rutgers and Radford.

 

Unfortunately due to a reportedly pretty bad quality, and confirmed quite expensive, streaming option for the games, we were not able to get eyes on these.

 

In the 1pm game against Rutgers, the Cards were able to get the offense in gear, and kept the crooked numbers off the board for Rutgers, taking the win 8-2.  In the 3:30pm game against Radford, it was mostly a pitcher's duel, but Radford broke through in the second for three, and the Cards couldn't get any offense at all after a single run in the first inning.

 

Alyssa Zabala gets the win over Rutgers, pitching six innings, helped by Izzy Harrison in relief.  In the second game, Sam Booe takes the loss with all three of the Radford runs in the second inning credited against her.  Lindsey Mullen pitched most of the game with Brooke Gray coming in to finish off the sixth.  As Radford was the home team, they didn't bat in the 7th.

 

Rutgers Scoring

Scoring against Rutgers was started off by Easton Lotus in the first.  She reached on an error, then was able to score after a Mack bunt plus a Rutgers fielding error.  Mack advanced to third on that error and then got home on a wild pitch.  Madison Pickens immediately followed that up with what was essentially an in-the-park homerun, scored as a triple plus a Rutgers error.

 

The Cards added another in the second inning thanks to Katie Thatcher.  She drew a walk, stole second, advanced to third on an Ally Alexander bunt and scored on a passed ball.

 

Things went quiet until fifth inning when the Cards picked up two more.  Easton Lotus singled, stole second, advanced to third on a Chelsea Mack single, where Mack advanced to second on the throw.  Then a Bri Despines triple scored both Mack and Lotus.  Both were marked as unearned, but it's unclear from the scoring as to why.

 

In the bottom of the sixth, Taylor Monroe, and Jordan Williams, both freshmen, hit back to back singles.  Veteran Ally Alexander continued the single streak to advance both the newbies.  Monroe then scored on a passed ball, and Williams scored on a Camryn Lookadoo groundout.  Again, Williams' run was scored as unearned without a clear indication as to why in the stats.

 

Rutgers scored in the top of the 6th and 7th innings, both earned.  So for those not paying close attention, all eight of the Cards runs were scored as unearned, while both of Rutgers were earned.  It is certainly true that a big part of Softball is capitalizing on the mistakes of your opponent.

 

Radford Scoring

A much shorter section, here.  Easton Lotus led off the game with a single, advanced to second on a Despines bunt on the second pitch of her at-bat, else Lotus likely would have stolen second.  A Madison Pickens double then brought Lotus home for the first and only earned Cards run of the day.

 

Unfortunately, that would be it for the Cards, and with Radford's three in the second inning, Louisville would finish the second day of the season again at .500.

 

Cleveland State Today

THE Spring Games aren't over, yet, however.  The Cards will face Cleveland State today at 11am.  The Vikings had a similar outcome as the Cards against Rutgers, Radford, and Liberty, but took a loss to the MTSU team that Louisville beat Friday.

 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We did get the trio of Case, Paulie, and myself on the call yesterday, though Paulie did suffer some technical difficulties that made him tardy to class.  He did get joined shortly after we got rolling, and we had a great discussion about Basketball, Lacrosse, and Softball as would be expected.

 

The podcast is available, as always, through whatever podcasting directory you wish to use, or directly at Spotify:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Spring-Sports-are-Here-e2ujlbh 

-- 

JMcA