Saturday Cardinal Couple -- Volleyball remains undefeated in AAC

SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Volleyball sweeps Bearcats on Senior Night in YUM!

The VolleyCards may only be a participant in the American Athletic Conference, AAC, The American or whatever you want to call it for a year...but they well may be setting a record that no future volleyball teams in the league will ever match.

They've played 16 conference games. They've won all 16. It's the type of dominance that Louisville football hoped they would achieve in the conference this season. It's a goal for both basketball teams on campus to try and mirror. Sandy Pearsall will hope for similar results this spring...but, for now...Anne Kordes' wide net killer are "all and 0" in the league.

The Year of the Cardinal is alive and strong in the YUM! practice facility, Cardinal Arena and the KFC YUM! Center when it comes to serve, dig, set and kill.

Cincinnati was the latest victim of the Cardinal blitzkrieg Friday night in the KFC YUM! Center. It was senior night and senior outside hitter Emily Juhl gave the fans a show to observe with 13 kills in the 25-12, 25-15, 25-22 sweep by UofL.

We've read our columnist Jeff McAdams lofty praise and kudos for the Louisville native and she earned all the accolades and more Friday night...along with senior teammates Brooke Mattingly, Caitlin Welch, Hannah Kvitle and Carly Sahagian.

The first game was tightly contested until Louisville used a 11-1 run to break open a 7-6 score and command a 18-7 lead. The Cards got back-to-back service aces from Welch and Mattingly's improbable flip shot over the net while on her knees was the final nail in the 13-point win.

UofL took a 5-1 advantage early in the second game but UC rallied to get within two at 12-10. Louisville responded with 12 of the next 16 points to put it out of reach and Mattingly
produced the game winner again to give Anne Kordes a ten point triumph.

The Bearcats roared out to a 5-1 lead in the final game but Juhl and crew responded by winning 12 of the next 15 points to build a 13-8 advantage. Cincy stayed close the rest of the way...down by two when Emily Juhl slammed home the game, set and match winner.

Louisville plays their final two in cozy Cardinal Arena before awaiting their NCAA verdict. UConn comes in for the beatdown Wednesday night at 7 p.m.

The AAC didn't get around to scheduling a conference tournament this season. Can you really blame them for not subjecting the Cardinal opponents to more abuse and slaughter? The other nine schools participating in the leagues' volleyball schedule must be getting awfully tired of the Cardinal set and kill dominance.

What started out as a learning curve with a few bumps and bruises has turned into a season that's become a very speedy expressway with  the ladies who hang out on Floyd Street behind the wheel.

Although the Cards are ranked 30th. in the latest NCAA poll, consider this...the squad has only lost one match in two months. Twenty opponents have faced them and UofL has hung a "L" on nineteen of them. Kentucky (who defeated the Cards very early in the season on two horrible SEC officiating calls during the final stages of the fifth game in Lexington) is 6th. in the nation.

Bring on the rematch...NCAA. Time for a little payback.



-paulie

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Thursday Cardinal Couple - Let's Get It Started

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( JEFF McADAMS writes today about the weekend ahead, where three of the UofL women's sports squads take to the fields and courts to excel. It's been a long time coming, let's get it started!) LINK BELOW:

Let's Get It Started (Black Eyed Peas)

O frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!

With apologies to The Black Eyed Peas ("Let's Get It Started") and Lewis Carroll ("Jabberwocky"), its a great time for us here at The Cardinal Couple as we get to start writing about sporting events actually occurring again.

Women's Soccer

Women's Soccer starts their last season playing in Cardinal Park with a Friday evening season and home opener against Butler.  Our visitors from Indianapolis get to meet the Cards kickers coming off of two good warm-up exhibition wins against Vanderbilt and Purdue the past two weekends.  They had to go to overtime against Purdue to get the job done, but wins they were.

Of course, now the games start counting.  Coming off of a 12-5-4 season last year, and an early 2012 season loss to Louisville, it seems that Butler is not exactly a powerhouse of a soccer team, but not a team you want to take for granted, either.  This year, Butler claims a 3-2 win over Ball State in exhibition play.

Sunday sees Illinois joining us at Cardinal Park.  The Illini had a nine loss season last year, which would tend to suggest that they aren't all that competitive of a team, though all of their losses were to some pretty tough teams, so perhaps they just scheduled a really tough schedule.  One of the joys of the very early season is not really knowing how strong the teams are that you're competing against.

Friday's game is a 7pm first kick, and Sunday kicks at 1pm.  A slight chance of rain on Friday, diminishing towards the evening, and the forecast is for dry and warm on Sunday...early in the year is a good chance to check out Karen Ferguson-Dayes' team without having to dress like Nanook of the North.  It should be a good couple of days out at Cardinal Park.  Adult tickets are $5, under 18 are $3, and under 2 years are free.

Field Hockey

Justine Sowry's Field Hockey team has a scrimmage Saturday against IU in Bloomington, IN.  This is a great road-trip through the rolling hills of western Indiana.  The game is a 1pm start, which should leave you enough time after the game to make it back to Louisville for...

Volleyball

Saturday at 6pm is the annual Volleyball alumnae match.  Last year there weren't enough

alumnae willing to play to field a team so this event turned into a Red v Black scrimmage.  No word yet on whether enough alumnae have committed to playing to field a team, though I certainly hope so.  I would certainly love to see great players like Justine Landi, Lindsey Mango, and Maci Wachtel back out on the court.  Sarah Drury-Petkovick, Directory of Volleyball Operations, is also an alumna and could, in theory be on the opposite side of the net.  Of course, Coach Anne Kordes is also an alumna, but she'll be too busy coaching, and being pregnant, to play on the alumnae team.

The alumnae event is a free, ticketless event at Cardinal Arena and is great fun every year.  If you've never been to Cardinal Arena, its a fantastic, cozy arena that's great for watching Volleyball action.  Any seat you sit in gives you a great view of the action...well, maybe not if you're directly behind the Up Referee.

Volleyball Preseason Honors

Speaking of Volleyball, yesterday saw the announcement of The American Conference preseason coaches poll, and preseason All Conference Team.  Louisville claims the preseason conference number one ranking...which isn't all that much of a surprise, honestly...and placed 4 players on the preseason All-Conference team.  Hannah Kvitle was the only one of the four that wasn't a unanimous selection, though she is the only setter to make the team.  Caitlin Welch is the only Libero to make the team and did so as a unanimous selection.  Emily Juhl and Brooke Mattingly also were both unanimous selections, and also were tabbed as co-Preseason Players of the Year.

Louisville Volleyball is starting the season with a 19th rank in the AVCA preseason poll, a drop of only two positions from the end of season poll from last year after graduating approximately 70% of the offensive kills on the team.

Volleyball opens their season next weekend, the 30th and 31st, with matches against non-conference-foe-for-a-year Syracuse and host Penn State at the Penn State Invitational.

Jeff McAdams

Thursday Cardinal Couple

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( OUR STAFF COLUMNIST JEFF MCADAMS...WHO HAS BEEN RE-NAMED BY THE CENTRAL CARDINAL CLUB...HAD A CHANCE TO VIEW CARDINAL VOLLEYBALL WEDNESDAY. HERE'S HIS REPORT...)

Volleyball Visit

Fall sports are getting tantalizingly close.  Karen Feguson-Dayes' Women's Soccer team is already playing...and winning..exhibition games, while the other fall sports are all into their practice regimins.

Volleyball is no exception.  As we heard from our interview with Head Coach Anne Kordes, the volleyball team reported to camp on August 9th and started practice on the 10th.  The team is practicing twice a day, and I had the privilege of getting to observe most of the practice yesterday afternoon and evening.

One of the things I was curious about was how much time was spent in practice doing skills development (like digging, passing, setting, hitting, serving, and blocking), versus practicing overall strategy and team tactics.  I didn't have a stopwatch on it, but it seemed to be about a 60-40 split in time in favor of skills development, with shifts back and forth between skills development drills and overall team tactics and strategy practice.  No doubt this serves to keep interest and energy levels higher for players in practice.  I suspect, as practice sessions move forward, more of the time will shift to tactics and strategy.

We've talked on the Cardinal Couple Radio show, and heard from Coach Kordes, that we have a young team, and that was evident in watching them practice.  We also have a team with a lot of amazingly talented players.  Combine those two statements and you have a recipe for seeing all the players on the court making some really amazing shots, but then turning around and seeing many of those same players take some real cringe-inducing swings.  It is, however, still early in the practices, so look for improvement there.  Overall, be ready for a team that could really knock your socks off with some spectacular plays, but be aware that we have a heavy dose of freshmen and sophomores that will probably make some periodic mistakes.  Watch for improvement throughout the season as players get more experience under their belts at this level of play and get more comfortable and confident in their play.  If you want consistency, look to Caitlin Welch, Hannah Kvitle, Katie George, and Brooke Mattingly...unsurprisingly, three of those were our USA A2 Team representatives and I wouldn't be surprised to see Katie George in that program in future years.

Maya McClendon is one of the talented freshmen

I was on a balcony overlooking the volleyball practice gym in the Yum! Center on Floyd street and one thing that really struck me is that our team is really short.  While perhaps somewhat accentuated by my perspective of looking down on the team from above, this is born out by the heights listed on the roster.  Brooke Mattingly, at 6' 3", is the only player that I would consider tall for a volleyball player.  Take heart, though, because there are some real leapers on the team.  According to Coach Kordes, two players...Janelle Jenkins at 5' 11" and Randi Ewing at 6' 0"...can both touch 10' 5" when they jump.

As a comparison, at my peak and my 6' 0" height, I never topped 10' even.  Other impressive high flyers are Emily Juhl, and Maya McClendon.  Javoni Faucette can also easily find her way to the top of the net.

If you want enthusiasm, you'll definitely have that, as this is a team that is clearly fired up and working hard to achieve their goals.  That's good because my visit yesterday has me excited for the season as well.

The first chance to see the team in action is August 24th at the annual Alumnae match at Cardinal Arena.  This is a free event and is always a lot of fun in an informal atmosphere.  The Volleyball Cards open the season with a lot of time on the road, with the first real chance of seeing them in regular season action happening down in Lexington on September 10th, 13th and 14th in matches against Kentucky, Minnesota and Pepperdine at Memorial Coliseum.  The home opener isn't until September 21st at Cardinal Arena against Rice and Virginia Tech...the match on the 20th unfortunately had to be cancelled due to scheduling conflicts.  They finally get to play at the KFC Yum! Center for the conference opener on September 27th vs Memphis.

There are a lot of really tough non-conference opponents on our schedule this year, and with so many of our matches on the road, the team faces real challenges.  With challenges come opportunities, however.  Beating good teams means better RPI ratings and better RPI ratings generally means better NCAA tournament seedings, and hopefully first and second round hosting opportunities.  Also, a road win means a bigger RPI boost and a road loss is a smaller RPI drop than home and neutral court matches.

I'm ready to side-out summer and start cheering for the next Year of the Cardinals.

-Jeff McAdams

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Cardinal Couple

FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( When it comes to Louisville Cardinals Volleyball, Jeff McAdams is our equivalent of Yoda here at CARDINAL COUPLE, wise and all-knowing...He catches us up on three Cardinals who have been toiling for the USA Volleyball National Team A2  )

- USA Volleyball A2 Results

-  New Look at Crescent Hill Radio website 

Three Cardinals represented the University of Louisville at the USA Volleyball National Team A2 program in Dallas Texas this week, and all represented Louisville well.

Covered here on the Cardinal Couple as far back as early May; Hannah Kvitle, Brooke "Stomp" Mattingly, and Caitlin "C-Dub" Welch were all selected, with 44 other volleyball players nationwide, to participate in the USA National Team's A2 program.  The A2 program is for student-athletes with college eligibility left to train together and compete in a round-robin tournament.   The program consists of 4 days of training, this year held at the University of Texas-Dallas, followed by 5 days of competition, held at the Dallas Convention Center this year.

After the training camp. the players are divided into 4 teams, denoted with the colors Red, White, Blue, and Gold.  Brooke and Hannah were on the White team, and Caitlin was on the Red team.  With an overall record of 4-1, the White team won the overall tournament, and with an overall record of 2-3, the Red team took third place.

All three players played well, earned starting spots on their squads and got some media attention.

Brooke garnered the least, but was captured in a picture signing autographs accompanying one of feature stories about the A2 event held in conjunction with Girls Junior National Championships.
USA Volleyball's

Hannah Kvitle was featured in a story by her hometown paper from Quincy Illinois, the Quincy Herald-Whig.  Matt Schuckman does a very good job of explaining the importance of having a good team for a setter like Hannah to achieve her full potential.  Its heartening to see Hannah, with Schuckman following suit, highlighting the often overlooked importance of the libero and defensive specialists on a volleyball team.  The article also discusses Hannah's hopes and expectations of playing professionally after her eligibility as a college player is over.

USA Volleyball posted a feature article about Caitlin Welch, highlighting her epic road-trip.  Caitlin not only participated in the A2 program, but has also been coaching a club team in the Louisville area.  Her club team competed in the AAU Girls National Tournament in Orlando, FL from June 21st through 25th.  The USA Volleyball A2 program started in Dallas on June 25th and ran through Wednesday, July 3rd.  Caitlin's club team is also participating in the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship in Dallas, an event that is wrapping up today.  This means that Caitlin has been on the road for two full weeks, in two different cities and states, and three major volleyball events.

Cardinal Couple Radio on Crescent Hill Radio

I believe Jenny will be back with us in the studio tomorrow at 11am for The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour.  If you've been paying attention in class, you might notice a slight change in the URL...this is thanks to the new website that Crescent Hill Radio has just rolled out.  Check it out.

-Jeff McAdams

(CARDINAL COUPLE is still actively looking for a sponsor for the weekly, one hour show. We're willing to sweeten the pot on this deal for you and add a sponsorship on this website as well for a mere 50 cents a day.

Cardinal Couple is a non-profit, 501c entity that could use your help in paying the bills to keep this site going and the radio show paid for. If you can't sponsor, why not consider donating to us? There is a Pay Pal link on the Left Side of The Site. Any amount helps!)

--Paulie

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Saturday Cardinal Couple -- Volleyball releases schedule

SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Volleyball releases 2013 schedule

-CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO on the air this morning


University of Louisville Volleyball has released their 2013 schedule...a slate that features 31 games, 12 of them at home, and 18 conference games in "The American". Out of the 12 home games, five will be played in Cardinal Arena and seven in the KFC YUM Center. All will be played on Friday, Saturday or Sunday...with the exception of a Wednesday night matchup against Connecticut Nov. 27th.

A challenging schedule ahead for Anne Kordes killers...playing in the Penn State Invitational, at Kentucky in the Bluegrass Battle Tournament and hosting the Active Ankle Tournament in Cardinal Arena with Rice, Virginia Tech and Bowling Green visiting.

The Cardinals will face eight 2012 NCAA participants, eight regional ranked teams, five nationally ranked squads and ten teams in the top 100 RPI.

Kicking things off will be an Alumni Match on Aug 24th. After that, its off to Penn State where the Cards will play Syracuse and the Nittany Lions. The road trip continues with the squad travelling to Fargo, ND. and contests against North Dakota St., Northern Iowa and Wisconsin. Three days later, UofL travels to Lexington...where UK, Minnesota and Pepperdine await.

Louisville's opponents in the American Athletic Conference are UConn, Memphis, Cincinnati, Temple, Central Florida, South Florida, Houston, SMU and Rutgers. The Cards will also have non-conference matchups at Wichita State and Middle Tennessee State.

Anne Kordes returns three USA A2 National Team members in Caitlin Welch, Brooke Mattingly and Hannah Kvitle.

For season ticket information...and there are some very good deals available...check out the UofL official website

www.gocards.com

or call 502.852.5151. Fans who purchase season tickets for the seven KFC YUM! Center matches will have the first chance to purchase tickets for matches at the sure-to-be sold out Caridnal Arena.

The Cards need you out there cheering on each volley, set, kill and serve this season. Get those season tickets ordered today!

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CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO is on the air this morning. We'll discuss the volleyball schedule with our expert "wide-net"
analyst Jeff McAdams and we have exclusive interviews with Lacrosse's Kellie Young and from Jeff Walz's Skill Camp.

Catch us live from 11 am - noon or access any of our previous broadcasts at the archives section of Crescent Hill Radio.

Stunning commentary, BELIEVE IT OR DON'T, Don Paulie and Peekup Dropvoff...we're the radio show your parents warned you about. Click the link below and listen!

CRESCENT HILL RADIO

We are still actively looking for a sponsor for the show beginning in July. We offer you a 120 second spot each week and permanent spot here on the website as well....over on the Left Side of The Site. All this for 50 cents a day. E-mail Paulie at cardinalcouple@insightbb.com for more information. Three, six or year options available.

The sooner someone steps up and takes a spot, the sooner I quit harping about needing a sponsor...


-Paulie

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