GOOD AND BAD DAY FOR LOUISVILLE WOMEN'S SPORTS IN CALIFORNIA -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 SOFTBALL WINS BIG, LACROSSE LOSES BIG ON WEST COAST. 

Two different tales on the Saturday Louisville women's sports activities in California. 

Louisville Softball had batting practice in their final game in the California series, hammering the Golden Bears 12-2  Louisville Lacrosse got whacked around by Stanford  22-5 out on "The Farm". 

SOFTBALL SUCCESS ON CAL PITCHING 12-2

Alyssa Zabala

Holly Aprile's "hit and pitch Cards" unleashed the bats against the Cal pitching staff in the 12-2 massacre. Early in the ballgame, it looked like Cal might be the team to take the final game in the series, scoring two runs in their first at bat against Louisville...but the Cards Alyssa Zabala settled down and the Cards took a 3-2 lead after two. 

The contest stayed at 3-2 until the top of the fifth. UofL brought the bats out for a little more exercise and posted six runs against the Bears to go up 9-2 . Three more runs in the top of the seventh created the final 12-2 blasting. 

This wasn't normally how Louisville unloads on a foe. Not a slap hit, walk and sac fly type of offense at all. The Cards got home runs from Jordan Williams, Bri Despines and Madison Pickens and doubles from Pickens, Riley Janda and Camryn Lookadoo that accounted for 11 of their 12 runs to cross the plate. 

Zabala got the win and turned the ball over to Jayden Gohs after four innings for the completion. The win was "Smiley's" ninth of the season. 

STANFORD FILLS THE NETS AGAINST LAX CARDS 22-5

For as much success as the Softball Cards had against Cal, Louisville Lacrosse must have felt like they were in World War III and losing badly against the Stanford Laxers. 

In this Cardinals ve Cardinal match on the turf...the home team scored first and had put six goals up on the UofL squad with almost four minutes left in the first period. And, in the second 15 minute stretch, Stanford increased a 6-2 lead to 11-2 halfway through the period.

 Halftime's scoreboard read Stanford 13- Louisville 3. 

The third period must have seemed almost boring to the home fans...Stanford was only able to increase their lead to 14-5, The Trees were going to be winners...no doubt..and proved the point to Louisville with a 8-0 fourth period stick party against UofL's beleaguered defense. Everyone scored for Stanford except the concession stand workers. 

22-5. Not pretty. Stanford was the seventh ranked team in DI WLAX going into the game and didn't hurt that standing one bit. They have the best record in the ACC also...at 10-2.  For Louisville..the loss takes them to 6-7 overall and 1-4 in the ACC. Louisville was 43rd in the nation going into the match. 

A JOYOUS EASTER TO YOU ALL...

From Cardinal Couple to all of you,  a joyous Easter to you. Remember, He died for your sins and He has risen. We hope the Easter bunny leaves you and yours baskets full of goodies.

paulie  

Softball Skirts the Rain, Lacrosse Loses to Syracuse - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Softball Gameday Dodging Rain

The Softball series at Pitt started out with a schedule adjustment on Friday, anticipating the need to dodge some rainy weather.  The result was that the teams had the day off yesterday and will be back to play again today for the final game of the series.

This is a rubber match with Pitt and Louisville splitting the games Friday.  Will Louisville go with another pitcher in the circle, or will Holly Aprile go back to her ace in the hole with Alyssa Zabala?  With one of Case's critiques in yesterday's article being about leaving pitchers in too long, as much as we here at Cardinal Couple like Zabala, maybe it would be wise to either pitch Sam Booe, or maybe Gabby Holloway to give Pitt a bit of a different look.

The game today starts at 1pm and is on ACC Network Extra streaming.  The weather is forecast to be basically dry in the area until this evening which should give them plenty of time to get the game in unless unexpected showers pop up.  It will be a bit cool, but not frigid.

Let's get the bats going, get the win and start climbing out of the lower layers of the ACC standings.

Lacrosse Loses to Syracuse

Most coaches are not going to celebrate a moral victory...they want to come away with a real win, but when facing the best team in ACC Lacrosse, playing competitively in the first half is worth of comment, even if the rest of the game...well...wasn't great.  Syracuse comes away with the win 22-12.

The Orange outscored the Cards 4-6 in the first quarter, but they played even in the second.  The third quarter is where things went sideways, with Syracuse outscoring Louisville 6-1.  The fourth quarter wasn't awful but not great either, as the Cuse won it 7-4.

The bright spots of play are what you would expect.  A Nakazawa gets a hat trick, Kokoro in this case, Nicole Perroni gets on the board to extend her consecutive game scoring streak, and then a spread of other scorers:  Rian Adkins, Allegra Catalano, and Izzy Seikel, each got a pair with Kylea Dobson, and Tiffany Natoli adding one apiece.

In goal, Sara Adeche snagged five saves, but got run up for 18 goals against.  J Pleck came in for a bit less than a quarter of play and didn't get any saves in that time, but maybe slowed down the Cuse a bit, as they only took four goals against in that nearly quarter of play.

Happy Easter

A Happy Easter to all our readers and we hope the bunny brings you lots of goodies for your basket. For those of a religious bent, Christ has risen again. Howeverr you view the Holiday, enjoy it and have a wonderful Sunday! 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Case is under the weather, and Daryl is starting wedding planning, but Jared, Paulie, and myself gather to discuss the week in women's sports.  We cover the Softball split of games against Pitt, and Lacrosse's preparation for Syracuse, among other topics.

 

We did experience a bit of a technical glitch this week, with the very end of the episode getting cut off after my streaming software crashed on me.  Apologies for the abrupt ending.

Check it out:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Softball-Splits-and-Lacrosse-Prepares-for-Syracuse-e2hpl75

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JMcA