Volleyball in the Championship -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Faces Texas for Another Milestone Opportunity

After making the Final Four last season, Louisville took another step forward this year to become the first ACC program in history to make it to the NCAA Volleyball Championship game. To win, the Cards will need to take down a historic program with a lot of momentum, but it will be one Louisville has faced before. The Texas Longhorns hosted a regional in 2019, which you may remember as the season that Louisville made it to their first Elite Eight. In that tournament, the Cards entered unseeded, having to travel to Bowling Green for the first two rounds. Louisville faced Texas in the Sweet Sixteen and, for the first time in five attempts, beat the Longhorns. The Cards would go on to fall to Minnesota in that Elite Eight. 

Facing the Longhorns again, much has changed over that time. Louisville had an undefeated season dashed by Wisconsin in the Final Four last year, which included All-American seasons from Anna Stevenson and Tori Dilfer. While many of the faces have changed, one thing remains for Louisville: the drive for greatness. Aiko Jones, Amaya Tillman, Claire Chaussee, and Alexa Hendricks all remain from that match as well. Jones had 24 kills and four blocks in the 2019 matchup; a repeat performance would be stellar. 

The Cards will face the top-ranked team in the country this evening, but it's not as big of a mountain to climb as it may seem. Through the end of the season, Louisville was ranked second in RPI, just behind Texas. Their two losses on the season were to Ohio State (seventh) and third-ranked Pittsburgh, whom they've since beaten twice. Texas's lone loss on the year came against Iowa State, ranked 31st in RPI, in the same week as Louisville's last loss. The Cards stood to claim that top spot before falling to Pittsburgh on the road that weekend. The Longhorns boast the AVCA Player of the Year in Logan Eggleston, but the Cards have an All-American on all three teams themselves. With Anna DeBeer seemingly back to as normal as she'll get this season, Louisville will have all the firepower they can ask for in the matchup, including incredible tournament performance from Phekran Kong.

Should Louisville win, they'd be the second team from Kentucky to become National Champion in just three years. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1998, only California has more than one champion from their state, though it would take some effort for the state of Kentucky to match their number of four. (Long Beach State went undefeated in 1998. USC won back-to-back titles in 2002-2003 and UCLA won in 2011. Stanford is Stanford.) Texas is seeking their second championship in the expansion era and third overall. There are some interesting coincidences in this matchup. Texas won their last championship in 2012 in Louisville. Since then, they've played in the title game three more times. The loss to Stanford in 2016 isn't particularly interesting just because there isn't a connection, but their other two appearances--2015 and 2020--were both in Omaha. In 2015, they fell to Nebraska, where Dani Busboom Kelly was an assistant coach. In 2020, their loss came to Kentucky. 

While none of those connections are likely to have any bearing on this evening's matchup, they're sure to become part of the storyline regardless. These players and teams have poured their hearts into the season, and only one team can win it all in the end. It's the cruel nature of tournaments like these. On the same day, the World Cup final will see one country have its dreams dashed in the most agonizing game. Basketball sees it every year for March Madness, while baseball crowns a champion in the same city as tonight's match. 

Louisville has been drawing ever closer since that win over Texas in 2019. It seems only fitting that they'd get the Longhorns again in a chance to reach the pinnacle. Tonight's match is at 8PM Eastern on ESPN2.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

With tonight's very important match to discuss and a week off on the horizon next week, we didn't want to cancel this week's show. However, with the bowl game at 11 and various holiday events, we have had to make a shift. Today's live show will begin at 10AM, with the podcast posting shortly after. Jeff will join us from Omaha, where I'm sure the hotel is buzzing with anticipation. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. 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!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: 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

AD Honor Roll -- Miscellaneous -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Athletic Director Honor Roll

We love to report on all the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports, including the off-the-field accolades. Well, especially the off-the-field accolades. There is much more to a student-athlete and their life than playing sports.

In April 2020, the NCAA released a study that there are over 480,000 student-athletes at the various levels of DI, DII, DIII, etc, and as one of their slogans says, "A majority of student-athletes will go pro in something other than sports."

Succeeding after college is important and part of that begins with passing classes and graduating. In the fall 2021 semester, 511 UofL student-athletes were named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll. The only qualification is to have a 3.0 or better for the semester. As a whole, UofL student-athletes averaged a 3.359 collective GPA for the fall of 2021.

At a team GPA of 3.760 for the fall of 2021, UofL Field Hockey led all teams.

Miscellaneous

Although we like to report the joyous side of things, sometimes we need to call out the negative, including Louisville's interim president Lori Gonzalez. The Courier-Journal released a report yesterday focusing on Dr. Gonzalez threatening to discipline faculty and staff for trying to hold online classes and sessions if they're scheduled to meet in person.

In a time when sports are going on COVID-19 pause, JCPS has transitioned to online temporarily, and multiple universities in the state of Kentucky have postponed the start of the semester or transitioned to online temporarily, why does it make sense to threaten your employees for wanting to take of their own well-being and the well-being of the students?

Many UofL community folks are stuck in quarantine due to a positive test or from contact tracing. It's not exactly easy to stay caught up with schoolwork and assignments when you physically can't be in class.

Many faculty and staff have already pushed back with multiple department chairs making statements that they will support their employees and go against the University's wishes, even if it results in disciplinary action.

Like hellooooo, COVID-19 is far from over. We all want it to be over, but it's not and cases continue to grow on a daily basis. We have to take precautions to protect people.

But let's move onto something on the brighter side. I typically just share UofL sports photos on here, but my photography skills go well beyond that. Occasionally, I do work with some UofL student-athletes on personal photoshoot work, often times when graduation season rolls around, but some of them also want other photo work done. Over the weekend, I got to work with another UofL student-athlete. I'll share a couple photos below and let you guess who it is before telling you.

Did you guess her name right? Here's some hints: her team recently won another ACC title and advanced to the Final Four. She's a defensive specialist. She hails from Assumption High School. If you give up, here's the answer: Alexa Hendricks. Hendricks, who is #4 for UofL Volleyball, just finished her junior season with the Cards.

Our wonderful athletes really do clean up nice off the field/court/pitch and it's nice to see them and interact with them in a setting outside of NCAA competition.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Red Black Scrimmage -- WSoc Hosts Western Michigan -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

VOLLEYBALL RED VS BLACK SCRIMMAGE 

We are starting to get in the swing of things again with several fall sports having started or are about to start. Volleyball hosted their annual Red Black Scrimmage last night. Worldwide was in attendance last night. With the start of band rehearsals picking back up last night I was not able to make it out to L&N Federal Credit Union Arena.

Some of you may remember that prestigious music conference the group I'm in- the Louisville Winds- performed in up in Chicago back in December 2019. After nearly a year and a half of not playing together, we finally got back to playing again. And we already have been invited to another big music conference at the beginning of next year!

Worldwide had all sorts of positive comments on volleyball last night . One of the promising signs was Ayden Bartlett getting a lot of playing time in the libero spot. Elena Scott and Alexa Hendricks also spent some time in the odd-colored jersey. Tori Dilfer was the clear favorite to be the starting setter again, but Rachel DeMarcus also saw some action in the same position. We did find out that Paige Morningstar is planning to redshirt this season.

Scores of matches are of a secondary nature in Red & Black scrimmages. We do know Aiko Jones' squad won the first set 28-26 per Jeff.

 

CARDS WSOC VS. BRONCOS

Moving onto tonight, we have the first true regular season game of any sport for the 2021-2022 season. Women's soccer hosts Western Michigan at Dr. Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium at 7:30 p.m. This match can be caught online on ACC Network Extra.

It's hard to preview the first game of the season because there is nothing to scout and base the opposition on. It's even more difficult because of the inconsistencies with last season and the pandemic.

Western Michigan finished last season 6-2-2, all in MAC play. They finished last season winning four straight matches. The Broncos scored 15 goals through 10 games, but did record a strong number of 55 saves.

Like the Cards, the Broncos have an experience goalkeeper in fifth-year senior Maggie Rogers. Rogers had an .861 save percentage last year. Fifth-year forward Bailey Korhorn led the team with five goals last year. Morgan Ottenson and Jenna Blackburn were a big part of the offense each contributed four assists to help power the offense.

Louisville has some experience on their side as well, with veteran keeper Gabby Kouzelos. She has a four-year starting centerback in Sarah Hernandez helping corral the back line. Taylor Kerwin, Maisie Whitsett, and Delaney Snyder have all been a big part of the team in recent years and enter their final year with the program. We did not see Snyder in the 2-0 exhibition win against Ball State last week, no information on her status yet for tonight. 

Snyder is expected to be a big part of the new offense, if she plays, with help from graduate transfer Mikayla Hampton. Ravin Alexander has converted to a forward and showed the impact she can make with her performance against Ball State. The Cards started five freshman n the exhibition we'll see if  that holds tonight. 

Louisville's schedule is rather unforgiving once conference play begins so we hope to see plenty of non-conference wins to slingshot the season out of the starting gate.

Paulie should be there and Sonya will accompany him. She made it out to the scrimmage on Saturday. Worldwide made it out for the scrimmage, and with free admission this year, we hope to see him at a few matches this year. In the past, Case had season tickets to soccer so it's a safe bet he will make it out there from time to time. Daryl will be running the video camera crew at the Bats game so she will not be in attendance. I plan to be back on the field taking pictures.

                                                    *****************************

Jeff Walz has a presser scheduled today at 2 p.m. (on-line) that Paulie and a few of us will monitor and we'll bring you that tomorrow, along with the recap of WSOC.  No earth-shaking news, as far as we know, upcoming from Walz, he hasn't done a presser in awhile and this is just planned as a "catch-up, how we're doing" event. . 

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared