10 UofL Women's Swim and Dive Student Athletes to compete in Olympic Trials -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 10 UofL Women's Swim and Dive Cards headed to Lucas Oil for USA OLYMPIC TEAM trials

We all know that Arthur Albiero builds strong UofL swimming and diving squads each year at the University of Louisville . The 2023-24 women's squad was 9-1 in dual meets and also fared quite well in events like the Louisville invitational, NCAA Championships and ACC Championships, where the women finished second. 

In mid-June, the USA Olympic Trials will take place at Lucas Oil from Friday to June 23rd.  Ten member of the women's sqaud (and 21 Cards overall) will thry to make the USA squad. 

USA swimming has also rolled out a prime competing venue, creating the Lucas Oil pool in Indianapolis. which will also be able to hold 30,000 spectators. That's huge, considering the previous venue for Olympic trials was in Omaha and sat 15,000.

These women Cards will compete: 

-- Gabi Albiero (100 Fly,) (100 Free), (50 Free)

-- Summer Cardwell (200 Free, 100 Free) 

-- Mia Chitwood (100 Breast)

-- Julia Dennis (100 Free, 50 Free) 

-- Paige Hetrick (100 back, 50 Free) 

-- Lucy Mehraban (50 Free, 100 Free) 

-- Christina Regenauer (100 Fly, 100 Free, 50 Free)

-- Rye Ulett ( 100 Back, 200 back) 

-- Tristen Ulett (100 Fly, 100m Free, 200 Free, 50 Free)

-- Ella Welch (100 Fly)

We wish all our Cardinal swimmers the best of luck and great times as they compete to join the USA Olympic squad.

paulie

Another Track Record and a Tough Swimming Loss -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Successful on Day One of Lenny Lyles Invitational

After setting a school record in the long jump two weeks ago, Synclair Savage decided that it was rather fun and elected to do it again. Her 6.44 from a couple of weeks ago would have won the event again this week, but she pushed the jump to 6.52m (~21' 4.5") this week. The distance set a facility and meet record, as well, and Savage followed it up with a second place finish in the 60m dash. She was second only to teammate Taylor Herbert, who posted a time just 0.02 seconds faster. The top four finishers in the event broke the previous meet record of 7.47s, with Herbert finishing in 7.39s.

The Cards didn't see a  ton of success in other events, but they did finish second and fifth in the Open Pole Vault (Carly Pujol and Lily Fleetwood) and Aliyah Welter grabbed a podium in third in the seeded event. The Lenny Lyles Invitational continues at the Norton Sports and Learning Center at 11AM today.

Cards Fall to IU at Home

Louisville invited the Hoosiers into the Ralph Wright Natatorium yesterday evening and the men, at least, got splashed around. The Cards lost 193-10 on that side of the pool, while the women fared better but still came up short. The sixth-ranked Louisville squad was "upset" by the ninth-ranked team from Indiana by a score of just 155-145. Louisville's day opened with a victory in the 200 medley relay. They would go on to end the day with a victory in the 200 free relay as well, but Indiana was able to make up the difference in the middle. 

Despite the loss, Louisville had quite a bit of individual success. In addition to the two relay victories, the Cards got a win in the 200 fly (Tristen Ulett), had a podium sweep (Gabi Albiero, Christiana Regenauer, and Julia Dennis) of the 50 free, and had 1-2 finishes in the 100 free (Albiero, Ella Welch) and 100 fly (Regenauer, Ulett). 

It's a short rest for the Cards as they're back in action today against Cincinnati. Today's event begins at Noon in the Ralph Wright Natatorium, and the day will begin with Senior Day festivities.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We're back for yet another week, although the basketball conversations may be a bit more sour than last week. We'll be without Jared this week, but the rest of the crew will be on board to try to keep on track with the joy and excitement of Louisville women's athletics despite the recent results. 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

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Apple Podcasts: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

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Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

Cardinals Outside of UofL Athletics; WCWS Storylines -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Swimmers Among Olympic Hopefuls

With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed to later this year (and still hanging on by a thread), US Olympic qualifying trials are getting underway for various sports to nail down the teams. Among the summer games are those that take place in a pool. Games in a pool during the summer? Professional athletes: they're just like the rest of us. Anyway, the University of Louisville has a pretty good history when it comes to swimming. They're still working toward that first team championship, but individual Cardinals have seen a lot of success at the collegiate level and beyond.

This year, more Cards will hope to add their names to the list of athletes that will get to wear the year's hottest Polo Ralph Lauren outfit (the US Olympic uniform). On the women's side, three Cards are at the event: Christiana Regenaur, Diana Dunn, and Paige McCormick. Regenaur made the finals for the 100M Freestyle yesterday and touched 6th in her race, 9th overall out of the 16 swimmers. Her placement is not terribly relevant based on how they are doing the advancement to Wave II (only the top two advance), but you can advance on time as well. The cut for Wave II is a 55.56. Regenaur's swim yesterday was only a 56.29, so unless she had a better time somewhere during the past year's qualification period, she'll be hoping for another race to attempt to improve or she'll look to go forward in another event.

The only woman racing today for Louisville is freshman Paige McCormick. McCormick is swimming in the 400M IM today. She'll also participate in the 200M Backstroke tomorrow. Regenaur and Diana Dunn will be back in action on Monday for the 50M Free and the 200M IM, respectively.

Cards in WNBA Action

Paulie gave you a look at the result from Thursday night, but the WNBA season is jam packed with games. There are three on the slate today and former Cards will be involved in all three. The day tips off with a Mystics vs Aces matchup at 1PM. If not for injury, this would be an opportunity to MHA vs Angel, but McCoughtery is back on the road to recovery. The game will be broadcast on ABC. Game two is also on ABC, and will tip off at 3PM. In that game, we'll see if Dana Evans can break into some more playing time for her new team. The final game of the evening sees the Connecticut Sun hosting the NY Liberty. That one is at 7PM and is not listed for a national channel. Availability is NESN, YES, and SN1. 

WCWS Providing Tons of Excitement

James Madison has come to win the whole dang softball tournament. After knocking off Oklahoma on opening day of the tournament, the Dukes were at it again last night when they took on the second home team at the tournament. Odicci Alexander was in the circle again and she flashed her glove in addition to her pitching skills. Late in the game, the Cowgirls put down a suicide squeeze and Alexander showed her athleticism as she raced the runner to the plate, diving for the tag herself rather than wasting time trying to get it to the catcher. She made the out and ultimately held on for a 2-1 win. 

The Dukes are now in the driver's seat for bracket one, waiting until tomorrow to face their next opponent. Oklahoma can still make their way to the championship series, but they'll need to win two games today and then beat JMU twice tomorrow to do it. Advantage JMU. The team on the other side in the same position is Alabama. The Tide made headlines last night as well when Montana Fouts took the circle on her birthday. It was a 21st birthday to remember as Fouts threw just the fifth perfect game in WCWS history while Alabama thumped UCLA 6-0. 

All four games today will be broadcast on ESPN, as will tomorrow's Game Ones. If a Game Two is required tomorrow, it will be on ESPN2. The championship series, starting on Monday, will all be on ESPN.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

Paulie alluded to my return yesterday but it's not quite here, yet. Today should be the last week of my hiatus, and I'm excited to return to the booth. It's been a hectic last couple of months, and I'm sure we'll talk next week about where all I've been. The rest of the crew will still bring you a great show this week, as Paulie prepares his next nefarious quiz. Tune in to the Cardinal Couple YouTube Channel at 11AM for the live show and be sure to subscribe to the channel to see the rebroadcasts as well as any other video interviews we post to the page.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Swimming Holds Intrasquad Meet -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Swimming Began a Three Day Scrimmage Friday

As the swimming season is set to get underway in some capacity soon, Louisville's squad has begun its preparations for the upcoming year. Yesterday, the Cards began a three day "meet" designed to mimic the layout of a championship meet, with preliminary heats and final races. Though the structure to these types of meets is similar, the invite list is not, as Louisville is competing only against themselves. While there's nothing on the public swimming and diving schedule, with basketball set to begin next week, swimming and diving (officially another winter sport) is sure to follow. 

With Sophie Cattermole, Molly Fears, and Grace Oglesby (among many others) all graduating last year, much of the familiarity from last year's team is gone. That isn't to say that there aren't new names that we should get to know, as there surely will be. One new name that you might be familiar with is Gabi Albiero. Gabi is the daughter of Arthur and sister of Nick. She's also a pretty good swimmer, coming to Louisville by way of CAL (where her mother is the head coach; big swimming family) ranked in the top 15 recruits by major swimming publications. Gabi made her presence known yesterday by topping the team in the 50 freestyle. She was also a member of the winning 200 relay team, along with Christiana Regenauer, Kaylee Wheeler, and Katie Schorr. Ashlyn Schoof combined with Albiero, Regenauer, and Wheeler to win the 400 medley.

Individual medium distance saw a new standout in Maria Sumida, who took the win in both the 500 freestyle (is that medium or long distance? I couldn't swim for that long) and the 200 individual medley. Today's events will be the 200 medley relay, the 400 IM, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back, and 800 free relay. We'll see if some of the same swimmers stand out or if some more can challenge them for the top spots. Louisville's long history of swimming champions is not likely to end soon, so this meet will be a great time to try to find the next one. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

In an extremely unlikely turn of events, we have a week in November with no games or matches of any kind to review for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. Fortunately, basketball is on the horizon, and Louisville will (presumably) get their season underway against Middle Tennessee on Wednesday evening. We'll have a full house for this week's Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast, and we'll discuss more of the award watch lists that were put out this week as well as preview the upcoming week that is. Make sure to tune in to the Cardinal Couple YouTube Channel at 11AM for the live show, or check out the podcast or video replay after the show airs.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-