Suftball drops final at NC State -- UConn vs South Carolina -- Season Recap -- Pick 'EM MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLCE

 CARDS RALLY FALLS SHORT IN RALEIGH

Louisville Softball got themselves in a hole early against the Wolfpack in the series finale Sunday, and -- despite three home runs -- fell to NC State 10-6

 

The Wolfpack posted three runs in their first-at-bat against the Cards, all with two out in the inning -- and Louisville was able to get only one back in the top of the second when Vanessa Miller went "Grass, fence, wall - touch 'em all" on a solo shot in the top of the second. It was her third round-tripper of the season. 

NC State got that run back in the home half of the second when they connected on a solo homer. 

The third inning is where the damage was done. NCST exploded for six runs. Two home runs, a double and a single gave the Wolfpack a 10-1 advantage. Sam Booe and Taylor Roby felt the wrath of the NC State bats and needed to do something to prevent a five-inning run rule decision.  

And respond they did. Louisville put four runs on the board in the top of the fourth. A three-run Roby home run down the left field line was the big blast in the inning (her 12th of the season) and Hannah File began the inning with a triple. Thee former James Madison standout scored on a Jenni  Servi single. It was 10-5 NC State, but the Cards were showing life. 

But, the scoring pretty much ended after that. Tala Felder entered the circle in the bottom of the fourth and delivered three innings of  two hit, no run pitching for the Cards. Louisville had two on in the top of the fifth but could not advance them home. Vanessa Miller went "yard" for her second home run of the game in the top of the seventh to make it 10-6, but the Cards scoring stopped there. 

Louisville falls to 19-15 on the season  with the "L" and is 3-6 in ACC play. 

A big one awaits Wednesday when the Cards take on in-state rival Kentucky and this one will be shown on ESPNU. We'll cover that preview in more detail in our Wednesday column. 

UCONN WBB vs.SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE NCAA WBB FINALS

South Carolina is your 2021-22 National champ- disposing of UConn last night 64-49

The Gamecocks got off to a 13-2 early lead on the Huskies and never looked back. They held UConn to just eight first quarter point in amassing a 22-8 first quarter lead. That lead swelled  to 30-12 in the second quarter before UConn mounted a charge that got them back into the contesr but USC scored last in the half and took a 35-27 into halftime. 

South Carolina started the second half on a 11-0 run and that pretty much doomed any UConn chances of winning.. The SEC school coasted through the forth quarter and won by 15 over a UConn squad that failed to put as many points on the board as Louisville did against them in the semi-finals. 

Congratulations to the Gamecocks.

A SEASON RECAP 

What fun it was to watch Louisville women's basketball this season ! The Cards took us on a magical ride that gave us so many things to enjoy and embrace. The dominating guard play of Hailey Van Lith, Kianna Smith, Chelsie Hall, Kasa Robinson and Ahlana Smith shut down opponents defensively and put points aplenty on the scoreboard. 

Emily Engstler, Olivia Cochran and Liz Dixon were as good as any front line in the nation and battled on the boards, shut down taller foes and packed a powerful scoring punch. Payton Verhulst contributed a loy as well as a freshman and the future looks so bright for her. A solid reserve crew of Ramani Patker, Merrisah Russell and Sydni Schetnan make sure the Cards maintained the pace and momentum when they entered Cardinals contests. 

It took the eventual National Champion to finally stop this Cardinal Cannonball, a UofL team that  was so good and effective on defense and ran past so many opponents (in conference and out). Foes never knew who would explode on them offensively but did know that points were going to be very hard to come by against the Cards stifling defense. 

Louisville will miss Hall, Engstler and Kianna Smith but there is so much talent returning and a great incoming class of five freshmen  who will compete for playing tome and recognition. Louisville women's basketball is alive, prospering and will be a major force to deal with in the 2022-23 season. 

Jeff Walz and the coaching staff did a wonderful job with these college student-athletes.  We wish Sam Purcell the best of luck and unqualified success at Mississippi State. I hope they realize what an incredible, hard working coach they are getting in Starkville. 

Such a fun, exciting and rewarding season we had, that got the Cards back to another Final Four. Whaddya say we do it again next year and end the season on a winning streak? 

CARDINAL COUPLE PICK EM

With South Carolina winning it all, we had two contestants tie for most wins. Our own Jared Anderson and Kenny S. ended up 47 wins, so we went to the tie-breaker. 113 points were scored in the championship game -- Jared predicted there would be 120, Kenny S. guessed a few more than that, so Jared wins the trip to Sea World (just kidding), but he nabs the winning gift card to Cracker Barrel. Kenny gets Subway. 

A thanks to all that participated and to our Bracket Czar Jared. 

What? He ran the contest AND won it? The Cardinal Couple Chimps have lodged a protest, called for sanctions and demanded a court of inquiry be formed. Yeah, we'll get right on that...

 paulie   

Softball Falls to Clemson; Sweet Sixteen Begins -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Softball Loses Opener at 15/16 Clemson

Holly Aprile's squad hit the road for the first time in conference play for a weekend series at Clemson. Oddly, even though they play NC State next weekend, they'll travel back to Louisville on Sunday so they can host a midweek game and then head back that direction on Thursday. Don't look at me: I don't create the travel plans for collegiate athletics. At any rate, Louisville hung tough with the top-25 ranked Tigers, but they were ultimately upended by late inning defensive breakdowns that set the final score at 5-2.

Taylor Roby was in the circle for the first game of the series, and she was locked in a pitcher's duel for much of the game. Louisville offense was stifled completely by Clemson's Millie Thompson, who struck out five of the first six batters. The Cards finally got on base in the third inning, putting runners on first and third with two outs for Roby, but a high pitch enticed her on a 3-1 count and she popped out. The fourth saw Louisville return to a 1-2-3 inning with a hit being followed by a double-play and then another groundout.

On the other side, Roby was effective early. Though she wasn't striking out as many as her counterpart, she was getting through innings fairly easily. Clemson left one on base in each of the first three innings, but finally struck in the fourth. After a strikeout, a walk and a steal put a runner on second with one out. A grounder looked to at least keep the runner at just third with two outs, but a Louisville fielding error allowed the runner to score. A second consecutive error put runners on first and second before Roby induced a lineout and a foulout to end the inning.

As if Clemson scoring woke Louisville's bats up, the Cards immediately took the lead back. After a strikeout, Dylann Cravens reached on a single. Jenna Servi grounded out but moved Cravens up a base. This brought up Carmyn Greenwood with two outs, and she promptly swatted a go-ahead two-run homer. Ally Alexander walked to bring up Roby, but a strikeout ended the rally at just two.

With the lead, Holly Aprile made what I would consider a puzzling decision to pull Roby in favor of Chardonnay Harris. I have nothing against Harris, as she is a fine pitcher, but Roby was not struggling and the previous run scored had not been her fault. Harris picked up a lineout to open the inning then gave up a walk and a single. A strikeout gave the Cards two outs before a passed ball moved the runners to both in scoring position. An intentional walk set up the force out at any base, but an unintentional walk on a full count scored the tying run. Harris was able to force a popout to strand the bases loaded, but the game was back to square.

As if on cue, Millie Thompson turned it back on and sat down the Cards in order in the sixth. Harris came back in for the bottom half and gave up an inning-opening double before Aprile put Roby back in the circle. Again, why take her out in the first place? A sacrifice bunt put the go-ahead run at third with one out, but Roby got a strikeout to put the Cards back in the driver's seat. A full-count walk was followed by a steal, putting two runners in scoring position with two outs. A big showdown loomed and it was Roby that blinked. A single down the left field line scored both runners and gave Clemson the lead. An error on the following play would result in one more run scoring before a strikeout stopped the bleeding. It was too late, though, as the bottom of Louisville's order went 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh inning and the game was over.

Louisville fought hard, but ultimately couldn't string together enough offense and defense at the end to pull out the win. Chardonnay Harris finishes with the loss after it was her runner that scored the go-ahead (and winning) run, but the pitching decisions yesterday were odd. I don't know that Taylor Roby wasn't asking for a break, but to go out and back in seems like it is almost never a good idea from a flow perspective. The Cards will get two more chances to get a top-25 win, and if they can take the series, they'll move back to .500 in conference. Today's game is at 5PM, and tomorrow's is at Noon. Both are on the linear ACCN channel.

Exciting Day 1 of Sweet Sixteen

It was almost all chalk yesterday in the first four games of the Sweet Sixteen, but the games were all exciting nonetheless. Each was decided by fewer than ten points, but the bigger oddity is that the total range of scores in each of the four games was just 15 points. The lowest scoring game yesterday totaled 129, while the highest was just 144. That highest scoring game was also the only upset, as Creighton knocked off ISU to become just the fourth double-digit seed to advance to the women's Elite Eight in history. On the same night, the Peacocks of St. Peters became the not just the first 15-seed to advance to the Elite Eight on the men's side, but also the first team seeded higher than 12th to ever do so.

Across the other three games, chalk prevailed with top-seeded Stanford and South Carolina and second-seeded Texas advancing. While Texas and Ohio State were back and forth all game long in what was ultimately a three-point win for the Longhorns, a six-point win looked much different for Stanford. The Cardinal looked a lot like we've seen the Cardinals of Louisville look a couple of times this season, as they watched a massive lead slip away. Maryland outscored Stanford 30-13 in the fourth quarter to close what had been a 23-point gap entering the fourth. Maryland picked up 12 steals on their way to turning over Stanford 18 times, making the Cardinal look quite vulnerable.

It was a tough second quarter for UNC that saw the Tarheels fall to the hands of the overall 1 seeded South Carolina. The Heels led by one point after the first quarter before being held to single digits in the second quarter. The 17-8 quarter gave the Gamecocks an 8-point halftime lead, which would match the final deficit. UNC trailed by 11 entering the fourth quarter and managed to win the final frame by three to close the gap once more, but South Carolina was too much. Strangely, South Carolina has now ended UNC's season in three different postseason matchups this year: football, women's soccer, and now women's basketball. While we were frustrated when Mississippi State kept doing that to the Cards, at least Mississippi State wasn't one of our major rivals.

The Cards get Tennessee today at 4PM on ESPN. It's the third of four games, as NC State and Notre Dame get things tipped off at 11:30. Following today's games, Jared will run the numbers on the bracket challenge, so be sure to check out Jeff's article tomorrow for a full update of the standings. My bracket went out the window quite some time ago.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Louisville Lacrosse hosts Virginia today at Noon, so we'll be without our resident photographer on the show as he braves what seem to be very unfortunate conditions. We'll also be without Jeff this week, as car troubles have him away. As such, we'll be without the live show this week, but we will still have the podcast available after we record. We'll get the show started at around 11, like normal, so the show will be up before 1. There are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Breaker: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

Meet the Wichita Region -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Meet the Wichita Region

The Sweet Sixteen is set and Louisville women's basketball continues to dance. The Cards made it through the opening two rounds by defeating U-Albany and Gonzaga. Nebraska was also in Louisville, but fell to the Zags in the round of 64.

Now, Louisville travels to Wichita, Kans. for their next group of four. We all know how 1-seed Louisville made it to this point so let's look at the other three teams the Cards will be spending time with.

4-seed Tennessee

The Lady Vols (yes, the still keep the name "Lady" in their nickname) improved their record to 25-8 after surviving the first two rounds in Knoxville. Five of their first six opponents of the season made the NCAA Tournament and Tennessee won all of those games. In fact, they lost only one non-conference game- a 74-63 loss at home to Stanford.

Tennessee has faltered down the stretch recently, losing seven of their last 14 games including an early exit in the SEC Tournament to eventual champion Kentucky. In that stretch, they fell to Florida, UConn, Alabama, South Carolina, LSU, and Kentucky. All of their losses on the year came to teams that made the Big Dance and four of the losses to teams who hosted the first two rounds on their respective home courts.

I called in some help from a good buddy of mine who is wrapping up his master's degree at UT Knoxville. With his ties to WUTK Radio Knoxville, he has been familiar with Kellie Harper's squad and their accomplishments this year. He also participated in the Cardinal Couple ACC Pick Em and has a bracket in our current Cardinal Couple NCAA Pick Em.

"Tennessee is a team with good size and decent guard play. They can get hot shooting but can also go ice cold. Manufacturing points when they go ice cold will be the downfall of this Tennessee team and the relative inexperience of the team will be to their detriment when they need to manufacture points to stay in a game. They are on the rise, but they are probably a year or two away from truly competing," Jason Wyrick, WUTK Radio Knoxville.

Tennessee began their postseason journey against 13-seed Buffalo. The Lady Vols held a small lead entering the final period before a strong quarter helped them pull away. Their second round opponent was 12-seed Belmont, and the Bruins put up a big fight in Knoxville. After holding a 12-point halftime lead, Tennessee surrendered the lead and had to rally in the final moments to get the win.

3-seed Michigan

A team that Louisville defeated earlier this season might reappear on the Cards' schedule. Michigan has been a tough match-up for most teams this season due to the size and skill of Naz Hillmon, who is averaging 21.3 points per game and 9.6 rebounds per game.

Besides their loss to Louisville, the Wolverines have five other losses on their 24-6 record, all coming in conference play. Nebraska, Michigan State, Northwestern, Iowa, and then Nebraska again in the Big Ten quarterfinals.

The Wolverines have big time wins against Indiana, Maryland (2x), Iowa, Ohio State (2x), and Baylor. Their 13-4 conference record (game against Illinois was postponed and later cancelled) put them half a game out of first place in the Big Ten and tied for third in conference play.

Michigan demolished 14-seed American by 35 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. 11-seed Villanova was a tad tougher in the second round but the Wolverines won by 15.

Head coach Kim Barnes Arico is no stranger to Jeff Walz, they played each other a lot when she was the HC at St. John's and the two coached together on the 2015 USA Women's U19 World Championship Team. 

10-seed South Dakota

One of two Cinderella 10-seeds in the Sweet Sixteen is South Dakota. The Coyotes have turned heads so far this tournament, but are no strangers to the Big Dance and the pressure and intensity the NCAA Tournament has to offer.

At 29-5, South Dakota was overlooked by many. They had a rough start to the season by losing to Oklahoma and South Carolina back-to-back. They then won a pair of games before falling to Northwestern and Texas A&M. Since the 2-4 start, the Coyotes won 16 straight before their lone conference loss came to rival South Dakota State.

Thought to be a team on the outside looking in, South Dakota "upset" 1-seed South Dakota State in the Summit League championship to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. They also knocked South Dakota State down to the WNIT, where the Jackrabbits have advanced to the WNIT Sweet Sixteen.

South Dakota held a nine-point halftime lead against 7-seed Ole Miss before outscoring the Rebels in the second half as well to send their SEC foe home. They then pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament by taking down 2-seed Baylor by 14. The Coyotes took the first quarter 16-4 and never relinquished their lead.

Louisville and Tennessee will tip off this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET / 3:00 p.m. CT Wichita, Kans. time. The game will be aired on ESPN2. South Dakota and Michigan will then tip off at approxiately 6:30 p.m. ET and will also be aired on ESPN2.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

Two Down, Four To Go --WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 TENNESSEE NEXT FOR LOUISVILLE WBB

The Sweet Sixteen is set for the NCAA WBB Tournament.

16 teams on a (at least) two-game win streak strive to keep dancing. It is survive and advance time and beginning Saturday,  four #1 seeds, two #2 seeds, four ACC teams and a few underdogs will see who can survive two more games and wind up in Minneapolis for the Final Four.

The Louisville Cardinals are one of the survivors. The Cards have played five of the remaining teams in the tournament, defeating Notre Dame twice, UConn and Michigan once and falling to North Carolina and NC State. Fellow ACC member Miami drew the misfortune of getting South Carolina in the second round and fell to Dawn Staley's bunch , Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech didn't get by their first round foes. A lot of people were surprised by that. But, Kansas and FGCU weren't in the tournament because of cute mascots. They had skills. 

The Cards handled Albany without too much trouble to open the tournament and then tangled with Gonzaga two days later, A scrappy bunch, those Bulldogs, but when you have a Van Lith and Kianna Smith, two excellent portal pickups in Hall and Engstler, two competent centers in Dixon and Cochran, instant defense in Robinson and key role players in Ahlana Smith and Verhulst.-- opponents usually fall by the wayside. Sure, Gonzaga had board strength. They beat an impressive Nebraska team. They ran into a better team, though, in Louisville. 

After all, Louisville didn't get to 27-4 just on Walz witticisms and snappy uniforms. 

I wonder what Tennessee is thinking. There is no one Cardinals player you can key on that'll shut down the entire offense. The Cards defense will take away what an opponent wants to do and, when you can't score, it's hard to win. 

About half of the participants in our bracket challenge didn't figure the Vols would get to the Sweet Sixteen -- Oregon was a popular pick to head to Wichita. Someone forgot to tell Belmont that, though, and the Ducks were open season for the Bruins. Those Belmont Bruins gave Tennessee all they wanted in Thompson-Boling Arena before Rocky Top escaped with a 70-67 win. 

Former, long-time Louisville assistant and former Eastern Ky, head coach Samantha Williams is in her first year at UT as an assistant.  Her knowledge of the Walz system of hoops is pretty strong, but one wonders if anyone can fully understand the true workings of the Cards mad scientist. Knowing personnel is one thing, but knowing which or how many of the game changers on Louisville roster will be hot and take over a game....I doubt even Walz knows that from game to game. 

And that's maybe the big key to Louisville's success. Which assassin is going to pull the trigger? No Dana Evans, Asia Durr, Myisha Hines-Allen or Angel McCoughtry on this squad -- but a double-digit contingent that works well together, likes each other, knows how to find the hot hand in a game and hangs their hat on stopping an opponent from putting the ball in the bucket.

The Cards are 2-2 against UT in the Walz era.  They've faced Pat Summiit, Holly Warlick and Kellie Harper.

 Pat Summitt Memories..

I remember Pat Summit addressing the media when the Vols played the Cards in the 2010-11 season, looking at the media, smiling and saying:

"Y'all sure got a lot of bars in this place. Never seen anything like it." 

It was after her Vols beat the Cards 63-50 in front of 22,124 fans in the KFC YUM! Center. Pat was complimentary, gushed about Monique Reid and surmised that a freshman named Shoni Schimmel just might make some big noise for Louisville down the road. 

I went to talk with her some more after the presser. She was standing in the hallway that leads to the visitors locker room, just gazing out at the KFC YUM! Center. I asked her about what she thought about Jeff Walz's work at Louisville. It took her a bit to answer, she was weighing her words, but finally told me that he had the potential to be one of the best in the game. She also looked around again and commented what fun it would be to coach in the Cards arena with the kind of environment present that night...all season long. 

Will UofL WBB ever draw 22,000 to the KFC YUM! Center again?  It's going to take a pretty special opponent to make that happen. NC State? UConn? Baylor or Stanford? Arch rival UK? 

Pat left a legacy that is still legendary. The Vols haven' been quite the same since she retired and eventually passed away. Here's hoping their two game tournament comes to an end Saturday. 

paulie

  

Round 2 Begins - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Cards vs Gonzaga

Round two of the NCAA tournament begins today.  The Cards are, of course, still playing at home in the KFC Yum! Center and have gotten the 7pm timeslot on ESPN, a rare evening Sunday game for women's basketball, and certainly a high profile game on the flagship of the ESPN fleet.  The late timeslot is no doubt helped by playing a west coast team.

Gonzaga is the nine seed in the region, winning in a very mild upset of Nebraska, 68-55 Friday, in the game before UofL played UAlbany.

27-6 on the season so far, Gonzaga does suffer some from what we see a lot on the west coast, where they just don't play all that competitive of a schedule overall.  The WCC does them no favors, either with the only notable conference opponent being BYU who beat the Zags in both regular season meetings, but lost to Gonzaga in the WCC Championship game.  The non-conference slate wasn't much to brag about for the Zags either, though it is notable for having a home and home matchup against Stanford.  The trees won in Spokane 66-62, but dispatched the Bulldogs a bit easier in Stanford, 66-50.

The Bulldogs have four players that average double digit scoring, Kayleigh Truong leads with 11.1, Melody Kempton at 11.0, Kaylynne Truong 10.5, and Yvonne Ejim just sneaking into double digit with 10.1.  To answer the likely next question, yes, Kayleigh and Kaylynne Truong are sisters, twins in fact, and their stat lines are remarkably similar across the board.  Kempton and Ejim are not three point threats, but the Truongs definitely have range with Kaylynne being having a slightly higher tendency for them.  The real outside threat from the Zags is Cierra Walker, shooting more of the treys than anyone on the UofL squad, even Kianna Smith, and hitting them at upwards of a 42% clip.  Gonzaga can challenge the passing lanes fairly well, stacking up quite competitively with the Cards in steals...other than Emily Engstler's mind boggling 77 on the season.

After the First Round -- Brackets

The womens' bracket is seeing more upsets that seems typical this year.  No region is fully chalk after the first round, though the Greensboro and Spokane regions each only saw a single upset in the round of 32.  10 seed Creighton advanced in the Greensboro region over Colorado, while 12 seed FGCU took down the ACC's Virginia Tech to advance in the Spokane region.

The Bridgeport region saw two upsets, though one is nine seed Kansas St over 8 seed Washington St, a very minor upset at most.  The other was 11 seed Princeton adding insult to injury in Lexington by eliminating 6 seed Kentucky.  Who knew that Tigers and Peacocks could be friends?

The real craziness happened in the Wichita region with all four sites seeing an upset, though no hosts got taken down.  Nine seed Gonzaga, as mentioned above, was a minor upset over Nebraska, 12 seed Belmont in what could almost have been called a home game for them compared to their opponent -  eliminated 5 seed Oregon in Knoxville, 11 seed Villanova took out BYU in Michigan, and 10 seed South Dakota beat Ole Miss in Waco on Baylor's floor.

Cardinal Couple NCAA WBB Pick "EM" Contest

So what does the Friday and Saturday contests mean for the Cardinal Couple Bracket Challenge?  Here's the update from Bracket Czar Jared:

27-5: Kenneth Stark Sr

25-7: Joe Hill, Bea, Perry Sosh, Case

24-8: Kenny S, Curtis Franklin, Nick O, Jared, Benny J, Katy Whitesell

23-9: Blue Lou, Arthur, Jason Wyrick, Jeff

22-10: Louavulfan35, Sonya Sykes, Doug Anderson

21-11: Paulie, Daryl, Vivian McAdams

20-12: David Watson

13-19: The CC Chimps

-- One bracket lost a finalist

-- Two brackets have lost a Final Four team

-- Eight brackets have lost at least one Elite Eight team

All but one bracket has lost at least one game for the Sunday-Monday games.

Thanks to Jared Anderson for doing this and to Paulie for catching Jared's mistakes...

If you have a question about your entry, leave a comment in the comments section. Chances are, I won't reply (I rarely read our comments section) but another of our industrious chimps probably will.  

Softball Gets Rained On

Literally and figuratively, Softball got rained on yesterday in their series against Georgia Tech.  After a big come from behind win on Friday, the Cards were unable to repeat the feat yesterday.  Georgia Tech won 17-5.

Much of the game was a real pitcher's duel, going scoreless through four innings, but the Yellowjackets did get their bats going against Taylor Roby in the 5th, scoring three before Holly Aprile moved Chardonnay Harris into the circle and Roby over to designated player.

The Cards got a couple back in the bottom of the inning.  Korbe Otis reached in a fielder's choice, took second on a passed ball, and then first base got backfilled by Kendall Smith drawing a walk.  Ally Alexander also drew a walk filling the bases.  At that point, Sydney Bickel (the All-Syd team continues!) came in to pinch run for Smith, and finally Vanessa Miller's single scored Otis and Bickel.

Glovey McGloveface at second. (Dylann
Cravens)

The wheels were falling off for the Louisville defense, however, and GT sebt five around the circuit in the 6th.  Again, though, the Louisville offense would reclaim some of those.

Leading off, Jenna Servi reset the UofL order with a single, and promptly finished the circuit on Carmyn Greenwood's triple.  A couple of batters later, Taylor Roby would ensure that the Cards would continue their homerun streak, going to the right field berm, and scoring Greenwood in the process.

Unfortunately, the defense didn't recover in the 7th, and GT spotted another eight on the scoreboard.  This time, UofL had no answer and went scoreless in their last chance inning.

The Techsters and the Cards will finish their series today with a game at noon.  ACC Network Extra is your source for video on this one, but the forecast looks absolutely wonderful for a relaxing afternoon at Ulmer.

Say "Hey" to our columnist and photographer if you see him out at Ulmer today -- but be prepare to end up in a photo, as he experiments around with some new lenses. 

Just stay clear if he's taking a "selfie".  

TODAY'S SOFTBALL PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Lots of basketball talk for the CCRHP yesterday, but we did get some discussion of Softball in there as well.  Good fun and discussion as always, even if we did miss Daryl on the call.

Check it out at your favorite podcast directory, including it's anchor.fm home, at:

https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/WBB-Advances-to-Second-Round-e1fusvb

JMcA