Sandy Pearsall Retires-- MLB Draft -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Sandy Pearsall Calls It Quits After 19 Seasons With UofL Softball

Once summertime arrives it can be tough to find a topic to write about sometimes so we always hope there will be news to write about.  Unfortunately, the news is not always the greatest, and sadly, we are announcing that Sandy Pearsall is retiring.

Pearsall helped build the UofL softball program from the ground up.  She was called in in 2000 to start a softball program with hopes of it becoming nationally recognized and she did just that.  In her 19 seasons at UofL, Pearsall has accumulated 718 wins,  six conference championships, 13 NCAA Regional appearances, and four NCAA Regional titles.  With Louisville, Pearsall went 718-371 for a .659 win percentage.

Louisville saw major success including a 55-5 season and a national ranking as high as seventh in the country while only having two losing seasons.  In the 19-year history Louisville has had losing records in conference play just twice and had a franchise-best 20-2 conference record in the 2012 season.

In 2000, Pearsall was named Conference USA Coach of the Year.  In 2012, Pearsall and her staff were named NFCA Great Lakes Region Coaching Staff of the Year.

Louisville players were extremely successful with individual awards.  There have been 101 all-league selections- 27 All-Conference USA, 54 All-Big East, five All-American Athletic, and 14 All-ACC.  Some of the highest honors include two Players of the Year (Asst Director of Marketing Chelsea Bemis is one of them), two Pitchers of the Year, one MVP, and one Freshman of the Year.

Before her time with Louisville Pearsall spent several years with a handful of schools.  The former Oregon State standout spent time at Pacific, San Francisco, Florida A&M, Colorado State, and Miami.  She was named to the Pacific Hall of Fame and won the 1990 Western Athletic Conference Championship with the Rams.

Pearsall released a statement, "It is with mixed emotions that I have decided to retire from the University of Louisville.  It has been a great ride, but after almost 35 years in the profession, it is time to walk away and focus on my family and my health.  I  am very thankful to the university, the administration, my staff, and co-workers for their hard work, support and friendship throughout the years.  I am especially thankful for the players who have come through our program.  They have helped lay the foundation for the success we have built here."

Vince Tyra had kind words for the well-known coach, "We sincerely appreciate all of Sandy's efforts in building our softball program from the ground up.  The 718 wins, NCAA regional appearances and conference titles are significant, but her legacy is united with the abundance of student-athletes' lives she touched and the investment she made in advancing softball in our community and university.  We wish her the best in her well-deserved retirement.  We will begin a national search for a new softball coach immediately."

Softball alumna Kelsi Rynard (formerly Kelsi Jones, 2015 graduate) thanked Pearsall via a Facebook post, "To the woman who took me in and gave me a chance, I can't imagine what my life would be like without you.  You kicked my ass when you needed to and you loved me when I needed it most.  I'm so thankful to have played for you, to have learned from you, and to have been a very small part of your tenure.  Louisville softball would be nothing without you.  Sandy P, you are the greatest [heart emoji]."

From someone who has only actively followed UofL softball for the last four years it was immediately clear to me the impact Coach Pearsall had on the university and this program.  It has quickly become one of my favorite sports to cover as media and to attend as a fan.  Her successor will have major shoes to fill.

Unfortunately, as always with the departure of a head coach, we will probably see an exodus of players and assistant coaches.  Pitching coach Kassie Stanfill already departed to accept a job at another school a couple of weeks ago.

I'm sure we will hear more from Paulie and Worldwide regarding this announcement in the comments or upcoming articles.

On a side note still softball related, congratulations to Florida State on winning their first ever NCAA softball championship.  The title is also the first in the history of the ACC.  The Seminoles, who beat Louisville four times this year, won the series against Washington 2-0.  When I had the chance to shoot a couple games earlier in the season while in Tallahassee and Florida State definitely looked like the team to beat then.

Louisville Has Three Selected in MLB Draft

Josh Stowers

Josh Stowers is packing his bags and heads to Seattle, well after some time spent in the lower divisions, to become a Mariner.  He was taken in the second round with the 54th overall selection.  The outfielder was a team captain and was an All-ACC First Team selection after his stellar season.

Adam Wolf was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the fifth round, 135th overall.  The lefty pitcher was a Third Team All-American and struck out over 100 batters en route to an 8-2 record in the 2018 season.

Devin Mann

Devin Mann was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fifth round, 164th overall.  The second baseman started every game and remained in the top half of the lineup.  Mann ranks sixth in the NCAA in walks and 17th in runs scored.

We wish these Cardinals the best of luck in the pros!





Other Cardinals in the Pros

Because of the wonky schedule with the WNBA I will keep my weekly WNBA updates on Friday, but there are a couple other UofL alums that were in town last night.

Andrew Farrell (New England Revolution, first pick in 2012 MLS draft, Atherton High School graduate) and Paolo DelPiccolo (Louisville City FC) went head-to-head last night at Lynn Stadium as the two teams competed in the US Open Cup.  The boys in purple and gold walked away with a win 3-2 and improved their record at Lynn this year to 3-0.  The hometown USL team and reigning USL Champions shocked the MLS team and will advance to the round of 16.

Maybe the biggest win (so far) in Lou City FC history. 

Happy Wednesday and Go Cards!

- Jared -

Women's NCAA Track and Field Qualifiers -- Baseball Done -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FOUR UOFL WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES IN NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS THIS WEEK

The 2018 NCAA Track and Field Championships begin Wednesday, June 6th, in Eugene, OR at Hayward Field. Four women student-athletes from the University of Louisville will participate in the finals. 21 Women's event in all will be contested. 

For the Cards, three participants will test the field on Thursday and one on Saturday. 
All times are Pacific. Here's a breakdown of the specifics: 


THURSDAY  1:30 PM  HAMMER THROW FINALS


Makenli Forrest will throw for UofL. She'll be in the first of two flights and is seeded sixth in that flight. Her best throw of the qualifying distances was 61.62m. The best throw of the participants was 71.26m. The top nine total finishers will qualify and then throw in the finals.  She has an outside chance of qualifying for the finals but adding 10m over her best might be more than the freshman might have in her. Hammer down, Makenli !!


THURSDAY  4:30 PM  POLE VAULT FINALS

Gabriela Leon, another freshman on the squad, is one of 24 trying to clear the bar. They're a little less formatted in this event. Qualifiers had to clear a seed mark of 4.18m. 

She's got as good a chance as anyone from what I can tell. They start the vaulters at 4.0m and if you clear it, they set the next mark at 4.15m. They go to 4.3m next, then 4.45m and finally 5.0m until just one remains. I'm not sure what they do in case of a tie. A vault off? 

Pole vaulting, I will admit, is one of my favorite field events to watch but one that I only tried once while in high school. It did not go well. The object is to go over the bar, not have it hit the top of your head when you go under it. 

THURSDAY  6:38 PM 10000M RUN

Dorcas Wasike, Louisville third freshman that qualified, will run in the one-heat final. She qualified with a time of 33:46. The top qualifying time out of the 24 was 32:14...so Dorcas will need to "pick up the pace" by a minutes and a half if she wants to challenge that.  Just to give you a general idea, 10,000 meters converts to about 6.2 miles. I'd never make it, unless it was in a golf cart. 

SATURDAY  5:25 PM 5000M RUN

Bailey Davis, a junior, competes in the finals of the 5000 meters (roughly 3.1 miles) in a single, 24 runner heat.  Her time of 16:15 got her in the last event of the NCAA Track and Field Championships...she'll need to improve about a minute to match the top qualifying time of 15:19. 

She's also a local product, having run for Louisville Assumption in high school.


Best of luck to these four and also to the Louisville men, who will have six participants in the finals! 


BASEBALL ELIMINATED IN REGIONALS


It was a good start for the Louisville baseball team on Sunday, with their second win of the regional over Kent State 12-6 to advance to play Texas Tech down in Lubbock, TX. The Cards had 15 hits against the Golden Flashes. 

They had to come back 55 minutes later and play Texas Tech in the nightcap, though...and the results weren't so good. The Cards fell 11-6 to the Red Raiders and end the season with a 45-19 record. 

Louisville fell behind early, Tech getting four first inning runs, and the Cards faced a 6-0 deficit after four innings. To their credit, Louisville never gave up and battled back to trail 9-6 after eight innings. The Red Raiders added two run in the top of the ninth, though, for the final score and the Cards went scoreless in the bottom of the ninth. 

A scary moment when Cardinal great Josh Stowers went down in center field after fielding a base hit. What appeared to be a serious groin injury had him writhing on the grass in obvious pain...but he was able to get to his feet eventually and walked off the field with assistance. Nothing serious is the report from the Louisville camp this morning. This was after he took a fastball to his hand a couple of innings before and had to shake that off before heading to first base. 

It is the first time since 2012 that Louisville has not advanced to the Super Regional. 


WNBA

A tough Sunday for the Atlanta Dream and Washington Mystics, but pretty good totals for the two UofL players in the league. 

Angel McCoughtry totaled 21 points and 10 grabs in 34 minutes for the Dream in a 78-71 loss to Phoenix in Atlanta. She drew the start and was the Mystics leading scorer. Atlanta goes to 2-3 with the loss. 

Myisha Hines-Allen ended up with 7 points and a rebound for Washington in 22 minutes...coming off the bench for the Mystics. It was a bad beat for her squad, though, falling 88-64 to the 5-0 Connecticut Sun. The Mystics are now 5-3 for the season....obviously missing the recent absence of Elena Della Donne, who was in street clothes, feeling the effects of Lyme's Disease.   


paulie
xxxxx

Super Weekend for Baseball, and Volleyball Plans -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Baseball Has a Super Weekend

"Super" Josh Stowers made his mark last night with 4 RBI's on 2 hits, one of which was a touch-em-all in a duel to the finish with a composed Xavier team.  The Cards take the win, and the Regional crown, on the 8-7 back and forth victory.

After dispatching Radford and Oklahoma to the extra challenge round Friday and Saturday, the Cards made it a full round-robin by meeting up with Xavier last night.  Xavier, who lost to Oklahoma on Friday, climbed back out of the elimination side of the bracket and sent Radford packing, then got revenge on Oklahoma and sent them home as well.

I made it back home from my weekend jaunt to Cleveland (and another activity or two) to catch the last 2 1/2 innings of the game.  Louisville finished out their scoring with 2 in the bottom of the seventh, and the closer Lincoln Henzman came in early, still in the 7th inning, and effectively shut down the Xavier offense.  With the 2 in the bottom of the 7th for the Cards, it was enough to close out the win.

With the win, the Cards advance to the Super Regional, which will also be here in Louisville at Jim
Patterson stadium.  With the seedings as they were, Louisville was guaranteed to host the Super Regional assuming they advanced.  Their opponent will be either Kentucky or NC State.  Either will be an interesting matching just based on the in-state rivalry, or conference affiliation aspects.  Kentucky is hosting the regional in Lexington, and in a bit of an upset surprise, is advancing through the elimination round.  NC State started off their regional by bouncing IU down to the bottom half.  IU bounced Ohio out of the tournament after Kentucky beat them on the first day.

NC State then surprised the Wildcats with a 5-4 victory on Saturday to set up the regional matchup between Kentucky and IU, with the loser heading home.  Kentucky prevailed (I caught a few minutes of this game at City BBQ in Columbus, OH while my car was getting some juice, and me some delicious baked beans).  In the evening matchup, UK did get a measure of revenge against NC State with the 8-6 win, setting up the "If Necessary" game for this evening.  The bonus baseball in Lexington is a positive for the Cards, who should have a nice fresh pitching staff after getting through the Regional in only 3 games, while Kentucky, if they advance, will have played 5, and NC State 4.  NC State has the shallower pitching roster, so it ends up being a bit of wash.

Tickets are on sale for this weekend best of 3 series at Patterson, but as you read this, you're already too late to get any chair-back seats in the main stands of the stadium as they've already all been snatched up.  Berm seating will still be available, but even those will likely get cut off at some point, although your correspondent doesn't know the specific capacity at which that decision will be made.

A guaranteed good time for all at Patterson. GO CARDS! 

Volleyball Making Plans

It's the time of the year when we start seeing the fall sports post their schedules, and Volleyball is no exception.. The season starts with the ACC/Big Ten (or as their logo shows it, B1G) Challenge  The Cards face Wisconsin on August 25th at 8:30pm EDT, and Minnesota on the 26th at 5 pm EDT.  The other ACC team at this event will be North Carolina, but the Cards will not square off against them until the conference season later in the year.

As is becoming common, the non-conference slate will hold plenty of challenges for the wide net Cards, and it starts off with a bang. This year, the Cards will be heading up to Madison Wisconsin to meet up with some quite familiar, and very challenging, foes in the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Wisconsin Badgers.  UMinn and Wisc are always powerhouse teams, but one note of encouragement is that Lauren Carlini, the phenom setter at Wisconsin that I feel like I've been watching for about 13 years has finally graduated. .We'll see if the Badgers can  reload in that position. 

The home opener is for the Cardinal Classic and features in-state rival Western Kentucky.  First serve on this one should be at 6:30pm Sept. 1.  The first game that evening will be between Kent State and Illinois.  The next day will be an all-day affair, with an early game between Illinois and WKU, and the Cards meeting up with the Kent State Golden Flashes at 12:30.  The evening session will see the Golden Flashes and the Hilltoppers square off, and the big battle for the tournament, another ACC/B1G matchup, with the Cards and Illinois (another very familiar foe) taking the court at 7:30pm.  One note for the weekend, Craig Bere is an assistant coach at WKU, and has Louisville in his coaching history as an assistant under Leonid Yelin.

Out west for the next weekend, to the UNLV Challenge, where the foes will be UC-Irvine, 9/8 at 3pm EDT; Weber State, 9/8 at 8pm EDT; and UNLV, 9/9 at 5pm EDT.

The yearly matchup against Kentucky will be in Lexington this year, with a 7pm start, presumably in Memorial Coliseum, on 9/15.  Returning home to finish out the non-conference slate, Kennesaw State comes to visit with a 3pm start on 9/17.

Conference play begins 9/22 at 7pm vs a continuing-to-rebuild-but-doing-so-quickly Notre Dame squad.  Some Saturday travel takes the Cards to Chapel Hill to play UNC on 9/24 at 1pm.  9/29 at 7pm sees FSU come calling to Cardinal Arena, and Miami follows on 10/1 at 1pm.

More split weekend action with a 6:30pm start on 10/6 in Blacksburg, VA against Virginia Tech, and back home for 10/8 at 1pm against UVA.  Clemson and Georgia Tech come to The Ville for a 7pm start on 10/13, and 2pm on 10/15 respectively.  Then back out on the road for Miami and Florida State.  Those are 10/20 at 7pm in Coral Gables, and 10/22 at 1pm in Tallahassee.  A rematch against Notre Dame on 10/25 at 7pm in South Bend this time, followed by Pitt coming in to Cardinal Arena on the 27th at 7pm (a fairly unusual Wed/Fri pairing).

Nov 3rd at 7pm will find UofL in Winston-Salem playing Wake Forest, then a short jaunt down the road for a 11/5 matchup vs Duke at 1pm.  Two weekends at home will be nice, with Virginia and Virginia Tech calling at Cardinal Arena on 11/10 at 7pm, and 11/12 at 2pm.  NC State and UNC come for the 2nd weekend on 11/17 at 7:30 for The Pack, and 11/19 at 1pm for The Tarheels.  The UNC game will almost certainly be Senior day, likely celebrating at least the UofL careers of Gabbie Wiley, Ashley Pettibone, Coline Coessens, Tess Clark, and Maggie DeJong...quite a class, there.  Finally, the Cards will close out the season in New England with Boston College hosting on 11/22 at 7:30pm, and Syracuse with former UofL coach Leonid Yelin at the helm, on 11/24 at 1pm.

There is no ACC tournament in volleyball, so at this point, the Cards will be awaiting the NCAA selection committee's view on post-season play.

More Volleyball Plans

If you haven't checked out the UofL Volleyball twitter account, you should definitely do so.

They are posting pictures and videos, usually every Tuesday, showing the progress of ongoing renovations at Cardinal Arena.  So far, they have highlighted the removal of the old seating structures (good riddance!), the installation of a new floor, and the destruction of a wall to accommodate more seating behind the end-zone.  I can't wait to see the final results.

-- JMcA