Cardinal Couple - Just Keep Driving

On the Road Again

After upwards of 24 hours of traveling over a 3 day period, to spend less than 20 hours in Minneapolis, I'm back in the 'Ville.  I'm tired, disappointed in the outcome of events in Minnesota, but oh so very glad I made the trip.

EDITOR NOTE:  Jeff was nice enough to join us on the radio yesterday while watching his Tesla drive him back to Louisville, I haven't heard if he picked up beer cheese or Huber Beer yet...but you CAN hear the show HERE

VolleyThoughts

The UofL Volleyball playing year has come to a close with a disappointing 1st round NCAA
tournament loss to a surprisingly good Northern Iowa team.

My thoughts about the season are still all a-jumble, but I want to try to get some down here.

First and foremost, if you take anything away from my chaotic thoughts, take this one away.  This team over-achieved compared to what was expect of them...by a lot!  Picked in pre-season to finish 8th in the ACC, which would likely have left them on the outside of the NCAA tournament looking in (again), with a new coach...not only new to UofL, but new to being a head coach altogether, this team put together an amazing later season run through the conference only losing two matches, and taking the co-championship with Pitt and earning the NCAA automatic qualifying bid for the conference.  Drawing an NCAA tournament draw that pitted them in the sub-region of the 7th seed vs the much closer 4 seed in Lexington.

So what happened in Minnesota?  While I haven't had the chance to go back and rewatch the match (and I'm not sure I will) to analyze, my first instinct points to blocking.  Not our blocking so much, although we were certainly a better blocking team than we have been in recent past, but to the opponents blocking.  If you look at the later season losses and matches where we struggled, the one theme that I think I found is that the other team blocks well.  In the UNI match, we were even in total blocks on the stat sheet, but not all blocking efforts make the stat sheet.  Deflections and tips that don't result in a point don't show up in the stat sheet at all, and good blocking teams don't just rack up stats, they deflect and tip shots that give the defense a better chance to play the ball and get a good in-system offense set.  Getting tips and deflections also causes the hitting team to try to start adjusting their shots to hit around, tip over, or just power through the block, all of which are actions that can be fraught with peril.  Any time you can get the other team reacting to you, rather than the other way around, you have a leg up.

We had an amazing defensive trio this year in Molly Sauer, Gabbie Wiley, and Alexis Hamilton.  We got less playing time late in the season from Alexis due to a wrist injury, but these three did an amazing job covering the digging and passing duties using just two players at a time, particularly on serve receive, when most teams would use three.  Add in a sprinkling of all-around playing from the likes of Amanda Green, and Melanie McHenry, and our digging and passing were much improved over last years, and drastically so over two seasons ago.  In basketball, turnovers and rebounds can generate offense (particularly if you're playing Walz-style of basketball), the equivalent in Volleyball is digging and passing.  We lose Gabbie to graduation, and looking on the current roster, the name that jumps to mind to fill that spot would be Natalie Palastro.  We do have two signed Libero/Defensive Specialists, including a standout from Nebraska name Maggie Mullen who I expect will compete for this role.

In other graduations, we will lose Maggie DeJong (apparently we have a firm quota of one "Maggie" per season) in the middle.  I expect Piper Roe to step up to fill that role.  Again, we have a signed freshman from Appleton, WI named Emily Scott, but I expect this role to be Piper's unless something crazy happens.  Tess Clark will also be departing, and the current roster player that would most naturally slot into that spot is Megan Sloan, but we incoming freshman Aiko Jones out of Jamaica who looks absolutely dynamic, as well as a Wisconsinite, Claire Chaussee.  I can see both competing for the role as incoming freshmen.  Lastly we graduate Coline Coessens, who mostly helped out as a serving specialist, but did occasionally play full-rotation with all around skills.  Not being confined to one specific role, I expect her contributions will be replaced with a patchwork of players and adjustments in play over the overall team.

This was a great year for UofL Volleyball, it hasn't matched the most successful years of the squad over the years, but given the starting point, I don't believe there is any room for complaints here at all.  This was a huge step forward for the squad, and I expect more to come as this team gets molded more and more in Dani Busboom Kelly's image.

I look forward to spring play, and the start of play next fall.

"You and I" might be advancing, yes, but I love the future
of this team. 

Basketball In Action

Two basketball games today.  The men host Seton Hall at the KFC Yum! Center at 4 p.m, while the women are hoping to outrun the Jackrabbits of South Dakota State with a 3 p.m. tip.  While the men will be looking to get back to their winning ways, the women will be working to continue to remain undefeated and go to 8-0 to start the season (with wins over 3 Top 25 teams in there already, lest we forget).  If you can't make it downtown, the men will be shown on ESPN2, while the women's stream will only be available on the added-cost SDSU streaming service.  I'll give Nick and AJ the listen on 790 AM (probably streamed) instead, and perhaps pull up the #3 Notre Dame vs #1 UConn game starting at 4 p.m.

 Muffet McGraw vs Geno Auriemma is always an entertaining match-up of two very good teams, both of which we'll be playing later this season.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

Looking for wins to talk about from yesterday?  The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour was a walk-off
Grand Slam home run of a broadcast.  It was particularly awesome if you ignore the dufus who couldn't even manage to stay on a phone call.

It was a bit of a different lineup from our usual, but man was it fantastic.  Julie JC "no periods" Sullivan, Paige "Wiener Dog Lover" Sherrard, and Daryl "#4" Faust joined Paulie in studio, and we couldn't ask for better analysis and discussion of Volleyball, Basketball, and Soccer than from this crew.  I did manage to maintain a phone connection for long enough to talk about the Volleyball loss some as I was driving across the hinterlands of Wisconsin, and then got to listen to the rest of it via the wonders of Internet streaming.

The replay is already up at

 https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20171202.

 If you didn't get to hear it live, definitely go check it out.

-- JMcA

Louisville Volleyball Moves into Driver's Seat; Kicks NC State Out of the Car -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Sweeps NC State in Battle for First Place

The starters do their pregame ritual.
(Courtesy Jared Anderson)

After constant badgering by my fellow Cardinal Couplers to make it out to a Louisville women's sporting event that isn't soccer, I promised I would make my way to the Louisville/NC State volleyball match. It's not that I don't like the other sports. I quite enjoy watching them and often do on my laptop. It's just that it is often tough to find the time in my schedule to drive over to campus to watch the games. Last night, though, I upheld my promise and stepped foot in the Student Activities Center for the first time since before I received my undergrad degree. After being told the best place to park was the Floyd Street Garage, I headed across the Watterson to campus. 

There were pedestrians abound as the field hockey final four matches were just wrapping up. Because of the final four and the volleyball match, signs saying "$5 Event Parking" were posted near the garage. I turned in, pulled up to the man taking money, and asked "Do you take card?" He looked at me with disgust and said "No. Is that all you have? No cash at all?" I informed him of the measly $1 bill sitting in my wallet. "Go all the way to the top and pay me on your way out." I'm sure the kind man didn't expect me to pay him on my way out, but I got cash from the ATM just to do so after the match. He wasn't there. If you want to ensure that you don't let people park for free, a sign saying "Cash Only" would probably be wise. Or just don't try to extort money from people at every opportunity, especially in a parking area that would otherwise be free to students and visitors alike after a certain time of day.

Jeff and Vivian McAdams and I talk pregame.
(Courtesy Jared Anderson)

After receiving my student ticket, I ran into Jeff, who was kind enough to extend an offer to sit with him and his mother Vivian, a regular of the site. The people who owned the season tickets next to them apparently never go, so there was plenty of room. I was appreciative that I wouldn't have to sit in the awkward endzone balcony all alone. I got my happy hour beer and settled in. After the National Anthem and player introductions--Gabbie Wiley threw her little mini ball pretty much directly to me and I handed it to the little girl in front of me--we settled in for what we expected to be a tough match between two ACC leaders.

Louisville promptly served up an error to open the match. It was fine, though, because it would prove to be NC State that couldn't get out of their own way for the rest of the match. The Wolfpack ended with a whopping 24 errors in the match and hit only .110. Giving 24 points to your opponent is a pretty good way to get swept, and Louisville was able to capitalize on those errors, committing only 10 of their own. Louisville added 13 team blocks to the stat sheet, absolutely dominating at the net. These blocks included two jousts that Wilma Rivera shoved straight back at NCST middle hitters and two cheeky, quick kill attempts that the NCST setter had sent right back down her throat. Louisville came prepared to play, and they seemed to execute their game plan extremely well.

Louisville squares up one of 13 blocks.
(Courtesy Jared Anderson)

Louisville's stranglehold on the match was only really in question in the second set, when NC State stretched out a 12-17 lead. They had led most of the set due to Louisville being a bit out of sorts, but went on a run to put the set in jeopardy. Louisville responded with a five point run to tie the set, then won 6 of the next 8 points to stretch out their own lead at 22-19. NC State couldn't recover and the Cards won 25-22. The third set was much less fun for the Wolfpack as Louisville jumped out to an early 5-2 lead and never really looked back. NC State was able to cut it to 8-6 at one point but it was never that close again, and Louisville won 25-15.

Unsurprisingly, Melanie McHenry was the statistical MVP in this one. I feel like I've written that phrase after almost every match, but seeing her play in person I could understand why. As Vivian remarked to me early in the match, "She's a competitor." McHenry plays with a fire on the floor and she was determined to win last night. At one point in the first set, NC State hit it straight at her 3 times in a row and she blocked all three. NC State finally went to the other side. McHenry finished with 13 kills, 1 ace, 6(!) blocks, 7 digs, and hit .343. She had only one error and was on the floor for all 131 points. Absolute warrior. Maggie DeJong also came up big with 7 kills and 6 blocks and Molly Sauer and Wilma Rivera were their typical star shining selves. 

The Cards celebrate their big win. (Courtesy Jared Anderson)

Louisville now sits alone with Pittsburgh atop the ACC. They are in complete control of their own destiny, as winning out would give them the ACC automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. If Pittsburgh loses a match (which is unlikely since the rest off their schedule is a cakewalk), Louisville also has the luxury of remaining on top with a loss, because they now hold the tiebreaker over both Pitt and NC State. No one else can join the tie without Louisville and Pitt losing all of their remaining games. Louisville looks to get one step closer to that conference championship when they take on North Carolina tomorrow at 1PM. UNC, if you remember, is the team that was able to reverse sweep the Cards, giving them one of their two ACC losses. The Cards will be looking to avenge the match they should have won on Senior Day. The match will be available on ACC Network Extra if you are unable to make it out.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We're in the studio today at 11AM to bring to you the joy and excitement of Louisville women's sports. We've got a lot of women's basketball wins to go on about as well as more about last night's volleyball victory. Jeff will have audio from his postgame interview with head coach Dani Busboom-Kelly and Paulie will likely have postgame from basketball. Tune into WCHQ FM however you feel most comfortable, via 100.9 on your FM radio, the WCHQ app, or WCHQFM.com. 

Also remember, as Thanksgiving approaches, that Cardinal Couple is thankful for all the donations we have received and may receive throughout the rest of this donation month and any other time throughout the year. You all give us the platform to spew our thoughts and opinions on Louisville women's sports and your donations help us achieve the coverage that we do as well as accomplish other goals that we have. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Sunday Cardinal Couple - Recaps Ahoy

Volleyball Gets an Easy Win

The Volleyball squad finished off their competition in Las Vegas with a pretty easy win over a clearly overmatched UNLV squad.  We did get notification of a streaming option on this one at the last minute, which I retweeting from the CardCoupleRadio account.  While it's always nice to watch your team get a win, this one wasn't particularly gripping and exciting volleyball.  The Cards played well, though there's always room for improvement  The Running Rebels of UNLV...well...they're just not in the same level of play at this point.  The Cards take this one 25-16, 25-16, 25-18.

Offensive power came from Melanie McHenry who hit is bombing .517 with 16 kills in the match.  Amanda Green also contributed, though less efficiently with 12 kills for .286.  In the middle, Maggie DeJong and Jasmine Bennett kept it solid with .545, and .250 hitting for 7 and 5 kills respectively.  They gave the Rebs fits with blocking though, with Maggie picking up 2 solos and 4 shares, while Jasmine got one of each.

I'm going to start calling Molly Sauer, "The Rock", with apologies to Dwayne Johnson, because she
is so even keeled and basically always turns in solid performances.  14 digs for The Rock, Gabbie Wiley also got 9 and 8 for Wilma Rivera accounts for the bulk of the defense.

I don't have a great deal of commentary on this one.  Whether you're the overmatching or overmatched team, it's hard to draw too many conclusions.  UofL played well, but it wasn't much of a test.  The match time clocked in at less than an hour and 20 minutes, as even the 16, 16, and 18 for UNLV is a bit misleading about how mismatched these teams were.

It's always good to get a win, and encouraging for the team to come away with a sweep of the weekend after the gauntlet that they've been running through the beginning of the season.  The team got to celebrate out with family and friends (documented in social media) with excursions out to the Las Vegas strip.  Take the time to enjoy yourselves and celebrate, because you'll be getting back down to business when you get back to Louisville to prepare for the next match in Lexington on Friday against a very good, and 13th ranked, Kentucky team.

After watching this match last night with my parents at their house, we pulled up the Minnesota vs Texas volleyball match that they had recorded Friday night.  A sobering reminder that, despite UofL outclassing UNLV like they did, there is still quite a long way to go to be playing at the level of teams like Minnesota and Texas.  For the record, Minnesota, #1 in the country, took down #5 Texas in 4 sets.  The level of play during that match was amazing, however.  If you want to see high level volleyball in action, you can check it out via the WatchESPN app as it was on The Longhorn Network Friday night.

Football Get a Not-So-Easy Win

UNC didn't really have any success in stopping everything Lamar tried to do, unsurprisingly to anyone in Louisville, but still apparently surprisingly to most Football pundits who still aren't taking Lamar seriously as a potential repeat Heisman winner.  UofL struggled in the first half of the game, but were able to put some distance on the Tarheels in the second in the 47-35 win.  I credit some of this to just tiring the UNC defense out as time of possession early in the game heavily favored the Cards.

The offensive line is holding well, a welcome change from last year, but our defensive secondary is not impressing.  UNC was able to break loose a number of big plays.  Special teams?  Yeah, a UNC kickoff return for a TD tells the story there.  While the likes of Barstool sports acknowledged the good effort of Blanton Creque in trying to run down the returner, it's pretty rare to find a kicker that can outrun a returner, who was able to pull away to get the TD.

Men's Soccer

Ken Lolla's squad lost a tough one to a very good Wake Forest team by a score of 3-1.  I don't see much shame in this one, but Case and Jared have shown that they're so much better analysts of soccer that I'll leave the breakdown to them.  Hopefully we'll hear from Case about this one tomorrow.

Don't Fear The Turtle

Maryland has used the phrase "Fear the Turtle" for their sports teams in the past.  I prefer to channel Blue Oyster Cult and "Don't Fear the Turtle", with more cowbell!

Sowry's Field Hockey team continues their weekend in the craziest shaped state in the country (I mean, really geographers, wassup with that?), and take on Maryland on their home field at 11:30.

Since Maryland left the ACC, they haven't been as aggressively testing in their conference schedules, but they make up for it with non-conference opponents.  They've already faced fellow ACC squads Duke, and Boston College, taking loses in both.  Wins against Towson, and Saint Joseph are solid wins, but not top level.  Coming into this game, Maryland sits in the 11th spot in the ranking, two below Louisville's 9th position.  This has the makings of being a very good game, and if you want to shell out for the Big 10 Plus addon to the Big 10 ToGo platform, you can watch it on streaming.  I'll be following along with Lori's tweets at the ULFieldHockey twitter account...which will also show up in the twitter widget on the right hand side of the site.

Radio Ga Ga

I think Queen hit the nail on the head in describing The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour.  Four guys babbling incoherently for an hour on Saturday morning?  Well, Case and Jared are pretty on the ball, at least.

In all seriousness, we covered a lot of territory yesterday, including a weather update, with lots of sports in action.  Check it out at https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20170909.  We had fun, we hope you did, too.

-- 

JMcA

Football, Volleyball and More -- Sunday Cardinal Couple

Football

Let's start on an upbeat note, shall we?  At least mostly upbeat.  Football, in their season opener did knock off Purdue up at Lucas Oil Stadium by a score of 35-28.  This victory is diminished slightly by some bad ball security, and a shocking number of penalties.  As I saw someone say on Twitter this morning, an ugly win is better than a pretty loss, so we'll take it, learn from it, and move on.

Credit to Purdue for keeping it close and forcing the Cards to score the last 10 points of the night to win this one. And, once again, Lamar Jackson shows why he is the reigning Heisman trophy winner with a huge performance in Indy.

485 Total Yards for LJ8...which was over 100 more than the entire Purdue team managed. 

Volleyball

Kent State

Volleyball had two matches yesterday in The Cardinal Classic.  The first, in the early afternoon was
against Kent State.  KSU was clearly the outclassed team all weekend, but they were a fun team to watch, mostly because they scrambled a lot, and did a pretty good job of it.  With the result is that they kept all of the games surprisingly close in score, though I don't think they won a set all weekend.  The Cards won, in straight sets, 25-14, 25-17, 25-19.

A slight change to the starting lineup in this one, with Piper Roe starting in place of Maggie DeJong.  Unofficial word that I heard is that she pulled an abdominal muscle in warmups for the Kent State match, very minor, and she saw action again in the evening matchup.  Piper made the best of her opportunity, putting down 7 kills on 9 attempts, for an absolutely eye-popping .778.  Melanie McHenry and Tess Clark again formed the third leg of the offensive stool, both hitting .318.  Melanie got 8 kills on 22 attempts, and Tess got 10 on 22 attempts, just with two more hitting errors than McHenry (3 vs 1).  Megan Sloan made an appearance in this match, and also took advantage of her opportunity with 5 kills on 10 attempts in only 2 sets played.

Defense was mostly by committee, though Piper did contribute well in blocking as well, with a solo and four shares, nearly half of the team's total of 7.  Digs were pretty evenly distributed, with Wilma Rivera getting the most at 13 as opponents continue to target her to try to take her out of her setting duties.  The two dynamic duos in the back row, Molly Sauer, and Gabbie Wiley, along with Molly and freshman Alexis Hamilton accounted for a total of 18, (7 for Molly, 9 for Gabbie, and 6 for Alexis).  The 6'2" McHenry continues to show her versatility in all-rotation play by also picking up 6.

Overall a good outing, and then evening came.

Illinois

Illinois came in to form the marquee matchup of The Cardinal Classic.  An (honestly, surprising to me) unranked Illinois team came in and showed that, despite having a new coach (probably a big part of why they were unranked to start the season) they haven't dropped a beat.  The Cards were looking for revenge for the elimination from the NCAA tournament in 2015, also in Cardinal Arena, but it wasn't to be.  Illinois came away with the win, 25-18, 25-15, 25-20.

Full credit to Illinois, who is still a very fine team, that never gave up on a ball, and with size and power that the Cardinals just couldn't match.  While Louisville was getting a lot of deflections and tips at the net, they just didn't have the size and height to get solid blocks, with only three total for the match.

UofL struggled to remain in system, and just didn't play very sharp.  I have no doubt that the team will be looking at plenty of film from this one, to find their mistakes and ways to improve.  One of Coach Busboom Kelly's saying comes into play, here, "Win, or learn."  There will be lot's to learn from in this one.

The Wide Netters head back out on the road next, with a trip out west to Vegas, for the UNLV Challenge.  There, they'll meet up with UC Irvine, Weber State, and of course host UNLV.  From what I've seen of this Cards team, and despite knowing precious little about these opponents, I do expect UofL to come out of this weekend with three more in the win column.

Don't give up on this team.  They may be only 2-3 in their record at this point, but those three losses are to ranked teams and a team that should be ranked, and probably will be in tomorrow's poll.  Also, in that win column is a win over a ranked team.  I would stand up UofL's strength of schedule to this point against any team in the country.  There are good things ahead, here.

Field Hockey

Sowry's squad looks to get back to the winning ways today at noon, where they also take on the Kent State Golden Flashes.  Let's hope the Field Hockey squad has as much success against them as the Volleyball team did, and help set a pattern for the Football team to follow three weeks from now when they tangle with Kent State here in Louisville.

Field Hockey is on the road for this one, in Columbus OH.  They'll be coming out angry after taking the loss to Ohio State, Friday.  No video or audio of this one, that we're aware of.

The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

The latest episode of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour is up on the soundcloud, and my snarkerator was a finely tuned machine yesterday.  We had audio from Dani Busboom Kelly after the volleyball win over WKU Friday, and had a wonderful live chat by phone with Cortnee Walton in our Catching Up series.  One takeaway from that, be sure to listen for her on the call a number of ACC Network Extra events this year.  Otherwise, we did touch, at least briefly, on all of the various sports competing...things get busy in the fall.  Check it out, won't you?

https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20170902

-- JMcA

Volleyball Shows Promise - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Two Losses, but Promise Still

Volleyball got their season underway as Case wrote about yesterday, and on the surface it looks like opening weekend was a disappointing one, with the season sitting at 0-2, now.  I see cause for excitement in this team, though.

Last night, the Cards finished off their part of the ACC/B1G challenge, and went down to defeat at the hands of #4 ranked Minnesota.  UofL did win a set in this one, and they showed signs of excellence in all four sets.  Minnesota was coming off a complete beatdown of UNC yesterday, and found the going a bit tougher with UofL, 20-25, 25-18, 25-18, 25-20.

Most of the usual suspects provided the Cardinals' offensive firepower, albeit aligned a little differently than we were used to seeing last year.  Melanie McHenry and Tess Clark privided the biggest outside firepower, with 14 and 17 kills each (.122, and .233).  Amanda Green also put down 9 from the outside, which would usually be cause for accolades as well, but with 9 errors to match, it's hard to be too enthusiastic about that.

Wilma Rivera, transferred in from Penn State did, as expected, take the setting duties for the full match, with 47 assists on 54 total kills for the team.  The Most Efficient award goes, as usual, to Jasmine Bennet, hitting .294, with 7 kills on 17 attempts.  Defense was by committee, with Molly Sauer clearly the chair of the committee.  She had 21 digs in the Libero role, while DSes Gabbie Wiley and Alexis Hamilton had 11 and 9.  Rivera showed her all around skills, and how much Minnesota was targeting her as setter, by getting 12 digs.

Subjectively, this team, to exceed expectations, needs to clean up the errors.  30 attacking errors is painful, and while some of these, as always, can be credited to the opposing team's blocking, but that's still high.  Similarly, 12 serving errors to 5 aces hurts a lot as well, and with serving errors, the team owns it all.

It's hard to draw too many conclusion when I didn't get to see, or even hear commentary, on this one, but to take a set off of the #4 team in the country gives hope.  Combine that with Friday's play against Wisconsin, despite it being a sweep, where UofL played competitively with them (well, after the first 10 minutes anyway), and they're the #7 team in the country, and there is reason to be excited about the potential of this team.

Last year was a year mostly defined by unforced errors, and we saw some of that this weekend, so let's hope they can get that cleaned up.  Otherwise, I think the weapons are there for this team to have a good year.  And yes, if they can clean up the errors, I think Jared's prediction of a top 25 appearance before the year is out is within reach.

I'm certainly excited for home opener vs WKU at 6:30 Friday night at Cardinal Arena.

Field Hockey Challenged Today

Sowry's stick squad faces a major challenge in this opening weekend with defending national champions Delaware, come to Trager for a noon start.  The Cards will be celebrating the birthday of Sherrill BrakeMeier, the matriarch of UofL Field Hockey during the game.  This is a real treat for those of us in the press box as she typically joins us in the chair closest to the door.  I have had the opportunity to chat with Brakemeier a couple of times, well, mostly gleefully listened, as she recounted tales of the very early days of UofL Field Hockey, playing on the Crawford Gym Field.  It's telling of the vintage of these stories that not even Crawford Gym exists anymore, let alone the field.

The Cards did start off their season Friday with a 4-1 win over IU which Case recounted in his article yesterday.  Expect a more challenging match today when the Blue Hens come calling.  We'll have the recap, and audio unless things really go haywire, for you in tomorrow's article.  Get the scoop by coming out to Trager Stadium for the noon start, the weather looks lovely, though you may need some sunscreen on this cloudless day.

Soccer vs Marquette

Women's Soccer continues the weekend of soccer (between them, the men, and Louisville City FC), with a match against Marquette with a 1pm kick at Lynn Stadium.  The team is undefeated so far, with a 3-0 start, which is helping Case feel confident in his 12-win season prediction.  If Field Hockey isn't your thing, Lynn is just down the street, but Soccer doesn't have water cannons like Field Hockey does.

I believe Case said he would be in attendance for this one, so look for his recap tomorrow, his knowledge of the game of soccer is far better than mine, so he should be able to give us more than just a statistical recap like I would probably do.

The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

I'm still not sure why they let us do it, but The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour made it usual appearance yesterday on Crescent Hill Radio.  You can catch the replay, where I admit to having gotten the volleyball ranking for Wisconsin wrong, at https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20170826.  There's a little less joking around and general jocularity, but the tradeoff is we get to talk about actual official sports results and play audio from Coach Walz and Asia Durr talking about their trip to Japan.

-- JMcA

Volleyball and Soccer - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball

Volleyball hosted their annual Red and Black scrimmage at the newly renovated Cardinal Arena which will be home to all of the UofL home matches this year.  The renewed facility looks great, apparently seats approximately 1200, and the seats and access are all more comfortable and easier to manage.

Though the event is titled the Red and Black Scrimmage, they actually played Red vs White.  The white team consisted of what I expect to be the starting line-up, while the red team competed very well (25-20, 25-23, 25-21) to give them some competition.

There are no official box scores for this exhibition match, but Associate SID for Volleyball, Nancy Worley did share a couple of stats in her post-match write-up.  Tess Clark, now swinging away on the outside, had 17 kills, and Amanda Green, the transfer that joined the team in January, had 14.  Both were playing for the white team.

In more subjective observations, Wilma Rivera, a junior transfer from Penn State, showed quite well what she is made of.  Another lefty, Rivera will join fellow southpaw Gabbie Wiley in creating a threat for UofL from the service line.  At 5'10" she has the height to be able to effectively block, and is just generally one of the most athletic setters I've seen in a long time.  In a couple of plays she did what I guess would technically would be considered a setter dump, but by putting a little bit of loft on the hit, she aimed for the very back corner of the opponent's court.  Both were targeted wonderfully, one was reached by the defense, but the other dropped in for the point about a foot away from both the sideline and the backline.  The precision of the targeting of the shots was impressive.  I think Cardinal fans are going to be impressed by this Puerto Rican.

I think it's clear, if you've read Cardinal Couple for the past couple of years that I'm a fan of Molly Sauer, and she continues to quietly, without drawing a lot of attention to herself, make this whole team better.  Alexis Hamilton, also in defense, showed that the recruiting praise was deserved.

Kali Eaken showed that she will be ready to go to fill in for Wilma on a moment's notice.  She lacks a little bit of Rivera's athleticism, but she is a good setter, so we're in good shape in that position.  Alexia Byrnes, a freshman setter, also got some reps at the position.  Piper Roe, after a minor ankle turn to Maggie DeJong early in the match switched from Red to White and played well, she will be called on to fill in when either Maggie or Jasmine Bennett are unable to play.  On the red side, Coline Coessens had some good swings, and Megan Sloan has shown, in addition to sporting a sleaker, slimmer, and more toned frame, the improvement in her game.  In defense, Natalie Palastro and Akela Yuhl, both freshmen, held their own, and with a little bit of an assist from a quite good practice player, and assistant coaches Dan Meske and Kolby O'Donnell really did a fine job providing good competition for the white team.

I did get some audio from after the Red and Black Scrimmage from Coach Busboom Kelly, and will be working to get it posted where it can be listened to soon.

All in all, I'm excited for the season to get underway.  It will do so Friday in Madison WI at the ACC/Big 10 Challenge.  UofL will be playing host Wisconsin who is finally without their stellar, she-finally-graduated, setter Lauren Carlini.  That match is Friday at 7:30 if you're in Madison, 8:30 for us Eastern Time folk.  Saturday they'll be playing Minnesota at 4 Central, 5 Eastern.  There is no TV or video streaming listed.  There is a radio link for the Saturday match on an IHeartRadio channel.  It'll be on 100.9FM in Madison, a frequency that is near and dear to our hearts here at Cardinal Couple as that's also the frequency that Crescent Hill Radio, our hosts for The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour, broadcasts on here in Louisville.

Soccer

Men's Soccer wrapped up their exhibition play last night with some very late game heroics to salvage the draw.

Watterson "Freeway" Young scored for the Cards in the 90th minute, to tie up the game at 1-1 vs the Oakland Bears.

They will be opening their official season this Friday at Lynn Stadium vs UC Irvine, The Anteaters...what a fantastic mascot!

 The game will start at 7:30 and should be a great way to spend a Friday evening...although we doubt UC Irvine brings the anteater with them.



Field Hockey

The Field Hockey team faced the Alums yesterday and it was one sided...as you might expect. No official stats were kept for the contest...but it was 11-0 undergrads over the grads. 33 showed up to play (or watch) for the alums and it was good to see them back out applying their skills.

4-0 at the half and the scoring onslaught really didn't get underway until the latter part of the final half...when the alums were getting a bit tired and substituting a few "veteran" players. Still, an aggressive effort by Justine Sowry's current squad.

I do know Taylor Stone had a few scores, so did Minnie Mink, Madison Walsh and Marigrace Ragsdale.

The highlight of the day was when a random person off the street walked through the middle of the field just as the game was ready to start and the alumni lined up to attack. She walked over to the UofL bench...exited and then came back across the field later as action was underway...racross the middle of the field again. With no "Yellow Shirts" present...she was unencumbered on her "stroll" but the police were called and she was eventually escorted out of Trager Stadium by University staffers.

Weird. Maybe she wanted to play....

JUSTINE SOWRY DISCUSSES ALUMNI GAME

Radio

Speaking of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour, the latest show is available at the usual location in the SoundCloud.  We were graced with the presence of Daryl Faust in studio.  Paulie let her know that her co-hort in Daryl-dom, Daryl Bell, on the Women's Soccer team, is expected to be out for the season with a knee injury.  It was a fun show, and Daryl really classes the place up over us knuckleheads, so do check it out.

There's audio from Field Hockey and Women's Soccer during the show and Worldwide successfully defended his title as "king of the quizzes"...although Daryl did manage a tie with him. The alleged protest  on one of the answers was over-ruled by Paulie in a psuedo-tense moment of airtime. Prima donnas...they're everywhere.

-- JMcA

Success - A Response...SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Ruminations on the Meaning of "Success"

In yesterday's article, Case wrote a fantastic short essay about the nature of Success.  Ok, there was more to it than just a philosophical and epistemological discussion about what "Success" means, but it was definitely an article that made many of us pull up short and think about the meaning of the term.

I couldn't just let the topic go, though, so, on this lazy Sunday morning, I find myself ruminating about some of the ideas, and I'll also share where I agree and disagree with Case on what I would consider a successful season for each of the women's sports teams at UofL.

Sports fans seem to frequently define success as achievements specifically within sports for their team and/or the individuals of that team.  Towards the more reasonable end of the sports fandom spectrum, you'll find fans that see success not just in National Championships, but steps along the way.  It seems pretty rare, in my perception, to find many sports fans that look for success beyond that, and I think that's something of a shame.  Case mentioned Brian Brohm and Luke Hancock.  Brohm is in the coaching staff at Purdue where his brother is head coach, and Luke, after playing limited pro ball suffered a career ending injury and is now a financial advisor.

Of course, my sport of choice is Volleyball, so I'd like to highlight some of the spectrum of success that see coming out of that team over the past years.

Let's look at a few players, and let's start with some of the players that have gone on to play
professional volleyball.  The first that come to mind are Lola Arslanbeckova, and Erin Fairs.  Lola had several years of playing professional volleyball, mostly in Puerto Rico, but has since had a child and is spending some time being a mother.  Where does more success come from there?  I have no children of my own (I have a niece and a nephew, both of whom are absolutely delightful, and I find tremendous joy in being an uncle), but I surely tip my hat to those who chose to have children and raise them well.  That's a contract that's at least a couple of decades long.  Erin Fairs is about to start playing professional volleyball with her 4th team in Romania.  She has already spent time in Sweden, Puerto Rico, and Turkey and has seen a great deal of team success on those teams.  Is there non-sports professional life ahead for Erin?  I have no clue, but from the little I got to know her in her year with the Cardinals, I have little doubt that whatever is ahead for her, it will be able to be described as successful.

But what about some other volleyball players?  Emily Juhl was a great hitter and server for the Cardinals, but chose not to pursue a professional sports career.  Emily is enrolled in the UofL School of Dentistry, and has already had the opportunity to put her developing skills in that field to some charitable use.  You could disagree about how much success she had on the volleyball court at UofL, and what impact she had on the team, though I think, pretty clearly, it would be an disagreement about degree of success, rather than success vs failure.  Clearly, though, she is a success story in what she is doing with her life "post-sports".

Friday, I posted a fun article about Gabbie Wiley playing in a Mud Volleyball tournament back home in Hannibal, MO.  But let's talk a little bit more about Gabbie, not only is she tearing it up as a defensive and serving specialist, but she's been named to pretty much every honor roll list announced for the past couple of years, making (just on a quick check) the Athletic Director Honor Roll at UofL for multiple years, but also the ACC Honor Roll.  Let's remember that she's a pre-med student, while playing D1 varsity Volleyball.  This is not a light workload, by any stretch of the imagination.  I don't expect Gabbie to go play pro volleyball anywhere, but I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who knows this young woman, even to the limited degree that I know her, that would say she is and will be anything but a success.

SUCCESSFUL

Case touched on this idea yesterday, but I want to amplify it a bit.  Let's not just consider success as an on-the-court measure for UofL Sports.  Yes, it's awesome to talk about being the only school to have ever had a Heisman winner and a Golden Glove winner in the same year, and I have no doubt that Lamar Jackson and Brendan McKay will see success in the pro ranks of their respective sports, but lets look beyond that as well.  Let's look at Teddy Bridgewater, who has seen some professional success, but also embodies success just in who he is (just look at the loyalty and admiration he has engendered, even in the pros...where players are thought of even more as commodities to build value for the team - well compensated along the way, to be sure - to be discarded as soon as they are no longer useful).

As much as I love to rip the NCAA as an organization, there is one slogan they have that is good to remember.  "....Most will be going professional in something other than sports."  Let's not shortchange the success to be found there.

What About the Teams, Though?

OK, a couple of quick thoughts about what success will mean for the UofL Women's sports teams this year.

Soccer: Generally agree, here.  Also, I'm not as knowledgable about soccer, so defer quite a bit to Case and Paulie's judgements here.

Field Hockey: Generally agree, again.  Though 5 losses probably doesn't earn you a top 2 spot in the ACC in this sport.

Volleyball: Top 4 in the ACC would be a moderate success for me.  I think this team can win the conference, and I'd like to see them advance to the 2nd weekend of NCAA tournament play.

Basketball: I don't think anything short of a Final Four appearance will be considered a fully successful season for this sport anymore. Top 3 in conference, Elite Eight in NCAA is a good season, though.

Lacrosse: Top 3 in conference is probably good for top 5 in the nation in this sport.  I'd agree with that criteria, but bump up the tournament expectations to a Semi's appearance.

Softball: Top 3 in conference is probably pretty good (I doubt anyone takes FSU out of the top spot if they're half as good as they were this year), and I think a Super Regional appearance that goes 3 games would definitely crown a successful season.

THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR

We had a great time in the studio yesterday with Paulie, Worldwide, Case and Jared! A GREAT interview with Asia Taylor, a challenging quiz (for some) and our usual totally irrelevant, off the subject rants and diversions. DID YOU MISS IT?

Not to worry....the replay is HERE

-- JMcA

The Next NCAA Sport? FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

New NCAA Sport?

The NCAA recently added Beach Volleyball as a varsity sport.  Is Mud Volleyball next?

Last weekend, rising UofL Volleyball senior Gabbie Wiley, with her vicious lefty serve and excellent defensive specialist skills, competed in a long tradition in her hometown Hannibal, MO.  WGEM had a small piece about Wiley's participating in the Mud Volleyball tournament, helping to defend the "Wallaby's" championship again.

The Mud Volleyball tournament is part of the National Tom Sawyer Days festivities in Hannibal, MO.  Mark Twain, the author of the novel Tom Sawyer, upon which the festival is based, was raised in Hannibal, and the festival has long been a staple of summer society in the area.

Unfortunately, WGEM arrived at the festival early in the tournament when the Wallaby's had drawn a bye as the defending champions, so there is no video or pictures of Wiley actually playing in the mud.  She did, however, send us this post-competition picture.

Other Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain themed events at the Tom Sawyer Days festival include fence painting and frog jumping contests.

Wiley will be a senior this fall on the UofL Volleyball team and plays as a defensive specialist, with some matches chalking up dig number that rival Libero Molly Sauer's numbers in about half of the rotations.  She also has a powerful jump serve that, combined with the opposite spin put on it from her being a left-hander, frequently stymies the opposition.  She has been named to the Athletic Director Honor Roll for the past two years while majoring in exercise science as a pre-med course of study.

Look for Gabbie in number 4 on the court this fall, where we're expecting she'll get quite a bit of playing time in the back row.

Season Ticket Selection for Volleyball Underway

Season ticket selection for their move back to the newly renovated Cardinal Arena (still a work in progress, but expected to be done before the season starts, of course), have begun for previous season ticket holders.

The selection process is handled through a Ticketmaster website and shows the typical 6 side sections that Cardinal Arena has sported since it was built, although with, perhaps, a few extra rows added, along with 8 "Terrace" seating sections.  The Terrace seating sections are the most visible changes to Cardinal Arena in the pictures being posted by the UofLVolleyball Twitter account most Tuesdays.  There will only be two or three rows of seats in the Terrace sections, but they should provide some fantastic views of the court, and if you really want to have the best view to see play develop and watch the tactics and strategy of play, they will likely be the best seats in the house.

Season tickets are $84, while Terrace seats will have a $150 donation to the Cardinal Athletic Fund attached to them.

ASIA TAYLOR on The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

You won't want to miss this Saturday's radio show. 

Paulie has an interview with Louisville WBB and Washington Mystics WNBA player Asia Taylor that we'll be playing as part of our catching up with former Cards WBB greats. 

Last week's interview with Sara Hammond was excellent and we expect no less than that with #31! 

The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

-- JMcA

Monday Cardinal Couple - Volleyball Returns

Volleyball Returns

The UofL Volleyball team is winging their way back to Louisville, having spent a week and a half touring part of Europe.

Twelve players went, five countries were visited: Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, and The Czech Republic.  Six volleyball matches were played, and most were lost by the Cards because that's kinda the point of these trips, to play teams better than you are to get better.  In the realm of uncountable we have: bowls of gelato eaten, stores shopped in, selfies taken, "L"'s hoisted, and Instagram and Facebook pictures posted.  And one ferry boat crewman rescued after falling into the water of a lake after sustaining serious injury by being hit by a car.

This trip has been an amazing opportunity for the participants, and you can definitely tell from the pictures and accounts being sent back via social media and the Volleyball blog on the GoCards website. 

Traveling to Europe provides an awesome sense of perspective to your life, and to your understanding of history.  The chance to play against several great teams in Europe as foils to improve the Cards play, and the extra practices that the team was allowed prior to the trip will certainly be a help come late August and September when the Volleyball regular season begins. 

Volleyball is one of the most intricate team sports around, with players relying on each other to a greater degree than in most sports.  Spending a week and a half seeing sights together, helping each other navigate in locations where you don't speak the native language, cheering each other as you push through the various challenges of international travel, supporting each other through the exhaustion of a week and a half of always being on the go and moving from place to place, and experiencing the fulfillment of the experiences that you all have together, no doubt has made this group of young women into a real team. 

This was already a close-knit and mutually supportive team, but a trip like this can only enhance that.  The extra practice and competition gives the team and coaching staff the chance to try out new lineups and rotations, to see how the different players react in different roles (Maggie DeJong as an outside hitter rather than a middle? It might happen.  Gabbie Wiley in the front row swinging?  You'll likely see that this year.  A 6-2 offense?  Your author has high hopes.)

Cardinal Volleyball has their first public event on August 20th, the annual Red and Black scrimmage at Cardinal Arena.  This is a free event and is always enjoyable.  This is a great opportunity to come and see the new players on the team (we have three freshmen, and a transfer that joined the team in January), get a chance to see some players that maybe don't see as much playing time normally out on the court, and start to familiarize yourself with the team for the year.  The season starts the next week, on the 26th, on the road at Bowling Green, OH.  The first home matches are September 2nd and 3rd at Cardinal arena for the Active Ankle challenge, with Santa Clara, Stony Brook, and Auburn making the visit.  It looks to be a great year for the Volleyball team.

THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR

Our show from Saturday is available for listening on the Crescent Hill Radio SoundCloud or at the link below. As we wind into the months before the Fall seasons, we plan on taking you some great places with appearances and interviews with some of the people associated with UofL women's sports that you may be very familiar with but are essential to the operations and success of the programs.  

LINK: https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20160528


The Kellie Young Interview, Handicapping Heroes and the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports. Another 60 minutes of radio as it ought to be.

-JMcA

Tuesday Cardinal Couple

The Ridiculously Early Worldwide Season Analysis

The fall season for sports is barely underway for soccer and not officially underway for field hockey and volleyball yet at all, but we have had a chance to see all of these teams on their respective fields of play, so it's time for a ridiculously early analysis of what we've seen.

Field Hockey

Justine Sowry's stick squad has two exhibition competitions to base our observations on.  First a Saturday mid-day tilt against Iowa, who finished last season in 18th in the RPI, missing the 19 team cut for the NCAA tournament.  Nonetheless, the Hawkeyes traditionally have put up some reasonable competition, but it wasn't to be found Saturday.

Midfielder Elisa "Chili" Garcia

A 4-0 win in regulation surely inflated the expectations of the Trager Defenders.  This heightened expectation would have only been slightly dimmed by Iowa's sudden victory goal in the 7v7 overtime session that they played despite a non-tied regulation outcome.  The  3-1 victory in the 1v1 shootout also would have served to encourage the team as well.

The next day saw the alumnae return to the field and a bit of a deflation of that excitement.  Sowry thought the team came out flat (listen to the radio show Saturday for the comments), and an early goal by the alumnae may have brought the competition back into focus for the current team.  Conditioning certainly helped as well as the current squad went on to thoroughly control the second half with a winning score of 7-1

What We Saw

We saw a team that plays a solid defense and makes chances on offense...a good basic recipe for a solid season result.

We did see some minor problems on penalty corners, though.  Specifically we saw some technique issues on stopping the ball inbounded from the baseline hashmark.  Ideally, the ball gets stopped and then hit by another player, either at the goal, or over to another player or two to take a shot.  Several times in the two games, however, the ball popped up into the air when it was stopped.  This drastically limits the options on the attack, and unsurprisingly, the team did not score on these bobbled attempts.  This is an issue that should be readily resolved with some targeted practice on the technique.

We have an excellent 1v1 goalkeeper in case of shootouts in Ayeisha McFerran, which also translates into defense of fast breaks, which I don't think we'll see much of, but it's good to know that we have a GK that can handle them.

A Reasonable Goal

Elite Eight, or Final Four appearance

Soccer

With two exhibition games completed as well as two regulation games in the books, we may have the best sense of where the soccer team is.

A crazy goal at Northern Kentucky handed the team an exhibition loss, so we'll put that one aside for a moment.  A good pre-season win against IU is encouraging, and a 2-1 win over Wright State in the season opener is also encouraging.  The second regulation game saw a very good Washington team get the 2-1 win.

What We Saw

We saw a team that creates some real chances on offense with reasonable protection on defense.  This is, clearly, an overall young team, but there is some leadership to help out.

Senior Forward Casey Whitfield

It's fantastic to have senior Casey Whitfield back, and she has already proven her value with several assists, but has yet to find the back of the net herself.  A mere 2-1 win over Wright State may sound a bit disappointing, but there was a significant barrage of shots that technically weren't on goal, but bounced off of the posts and crossbar.  Keep that up, and points will start showing up on the scoreboard.

This team has some potential this year.  I'm not going to hold my breath for a national championship, but we should see a better outcome than last year, and that's the definition of progress.

A Reasonable Goal

Return to the NCAA tournament.  Win a tournament game.

Volleyball

We've got the least data on volleyball, with only an intra-squad scrimmage in the rear-view mirror.  That also means any scores are pretty much meaningless as players switch back and forth between the two sides of the competition pretty much on every play in the Red & Black Scrimmage.

So, let's get directly to...

What We Saw

Passing and digging was much improved over what we saw last year.  We already had some evidence that this was the case based on some interviews and getting to see an early practice, but it's encouraging to see it in person in more of a game-type of setting.

We also saw, however, a number of service errors, and some hitting errors as well that need to get cleaned up if we're going to have a strong season.

A few things that I saw that I really liked...we have three left-handers on the squad, which gives other teams a different and slightly unusual look to attacks that can throw off their spacing a bit.  Southpaws also tend to put a bit of a different spin on serves, which can cause the other team some problems.  Speaking of serving, I saw Gabbie Wiley, one of the lefties, serving a jump serve in pre-season practice last year, but she didn't use in during the season.  I saw more work on it in pre-season practice this year, and she brought it out for the scrimmage.  I'm hopeful we'll see it during the season as well.

Freshman Right Side and Setter Morgan Miller

Freshman Morgan Miller, also a leftie, looks pretty good on the right side, and is a competent setter as well, so I would expect to see her on the court in that right side position and giving the squad almost a double-setter look.  Might we even see Katie George take a swing if Miller has to take the set?  It's possible.  Incidentally, the other leftie is our backup true setter Kali Eaken.

Erin Fairs and Maya McClendon both can play full rotation as left side and back-row attackers which makes for more balance in the attack, and more options for our setters.  Our middles, primarily Tess Clark and Maggie DeJong are just as amazing as they were last year.

A Reasonable Goal

Return to the NCAA tournament.  Maybe a sweet sixteen appearance.

Volleyball preview -- Tuesday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball Update

As spring sports have wrapped up, I've started to field some questions about what the Volleyball team is going to look like this fall.  We talked a bit about the schedule that was posted a few weeks ago (far earlier than usual, for Volleyball...some credit goes to the ACC for being on the ball for that, I suspect), but the roster has now been updated, and there are some changes, not all completely expected, but none too terribly shocking either, I don't believe.

First off, last year we had an effective roster of 13 people. The website lists 15, but we had one mid-season departure from the team and Javoni Faucette sat out the whole season because of injuries.  This year, we're looking at a roster of at least 16, and to my knowledge, everyone is completely healthy.  I also hear of another likely transfer that isn't yet official and thus isn't listed, and likely won't be added, presumably, until after she arrives on campus for the summer.

We graduated two; Tara Gowan, an outside hitter; and Courtney Robison, a defensive specialist.  Javoni Faucette has apparently not been able to fully recover from her injuries and is not returning, and Brooke Betts has decided to pursue the sport elsewhere.  That leaves a returning core of ten players.  Outside hitters Laura Blab, Maya McClendon, and Janelle Jenkins will be returning (Jenkins has occasionally played at middle when needed).  Our phenomenal duo of middle blockers, Tess Clark and Maggie DeJong will also be returning.  At setter, we have the services of both Katie George and Lindsay Palmer again, though should Katie win Miss USA in July, its unlikely she will return to play volleyball, in my estimation.  On defense, the trio of Roxanne McVey, Gabbie Wiley, and Eleni Georgiafandis will still be providing a solid core, Lindsay Palmer can be counted on to fill in on defense as well, when Katie is setting.

There were two transfers that joined the team in January that we've spoken about some before.  Both outside hitters - Ashley Pettibone transferred from Golden West College and will be a sophomore, and Erin Fairs comes to us from USF and will be a senior.  I don't expect to see Ashley on the court a tremendous amount this year, but count on Erin to be a major component of what looks to be a fairly potent, if not terribly tall, offense.  Erin also will likely play full rotation, so expect to see her digging and passing as well as providing an offensive outlet as a back-row attacker.

There are four incoming freshmen.  First is Molly Sauer, a hometown favorite, coming to UofL from Assumption and KIVA, Molly is listed as a Libero and will bolster the defensive core that we have returning.  The roster has Molly, Roxanne, and Eleni all listed as Libero, with Gabbie as a DS, but I would expect Molly to be the one that ends up wearing the different colored jersey.

Next among the freshmen are a pair from Texas. Aniah Philo is from Rockwall, TX, in the Dallas area.  Morgan Miller comes to us from Magnolia, TX (and is remarkably difficult to google due to at least two other notable Morgan Miller's, including one who is a volleyball player, and another who has had some success in the beauty pageant world from Magnolia, AR).  Magnolia is outside of Houston, and incidentally, this is the same hometown as Roxanne McVey, though they did attend different high schools.  Aniah is an Outside Hitter, and Morgan is listed as both a setter and a right side hitter.  While I haven't seen either play, as the only player listed as a right side hitter, I would think it likely that Morgan would get some playing time in that position.

Lastly, Jasmine Bennett comes to us from McCracken County High School in the Paducah area.  Jasmine is the daughter of Winston Bennett and will be wearing jersey number 25 like her father did during his basketball career.  I have not had the opportunity to see Jasmine play, but I would be surprised, as a middle blocker, if she can crack into significant playing time over Tess or Maggie this year.

Baseball Hosts

As always, while its not really in our core mission, I would be remiss in not noting the results of the NCAA Baseball Selection show.  We knew already that Louisville had been selected as a host site for the Baseball Regionals, but the selection show revealed that we will be the overall 3 seed in the tournament, which means that we will also host a SuperRegional...presuming, of course, that we emerge victorious from Regional play.

In the Regional, we will be hosting Morehead State, who will be our first opponent, along with Bradley who is the Regional 2 seed, and Michigan.  The format for the NCAA Baseball tournament is the same as Softball, with double-elimination Regionals, a best of 3 Super Regional, and the College World Series with essentially parallel double elimination and a best of three championship series.

Action gets started Friday at 2pm, with the Cards taking the field at a scheduled 6pm.  NCAA action is ticketed, unlike most UofL Baseball games.  Tickets can be bought starting Thursday through the UofL ticket office.

jmca