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

Southpaw specials...Cardinal Couple Saturday

Cardinal Couple Collaborative Southpaw Special Squad

It's been a while.  I know you have been craving a Cardinal Couple team honor, so today we bring you The Cardinal Couple Collaborative Southpaw Special Squad.  An honorary team of all left-handers.  We only have appearances from three of the Louisville women's teams because, here's a fun fact for you, there is no "left-handed" equipment for Field Hockey, so it's nigh-on impossible to tell the lefties when they're out on the field in that sport, and similar for Lacrosse.  So we have honorees from Basketball, Volleyball, and Softball, as these are the sports where handedness really makes a more significant difference.

Softball Honorees

We'll start on the diamond.  We have three full lefties on the Softball Squad.

Jordan Vorbrink

A sophomore this year, Jordan saw action last year as a freshman, with appearances in 24 games, and 15 starts at either first base, or in the outfield.  Seemingly a specialist in triples, tying for the team lead, she almost had a cycle in one game, lacking just a single in the attempt.  Jordan is a local, playing high school ball at Mercy Academy

Morgan Meyer

A senior leader on the team, co-captain last year, "Mo" played in 45 games last year, with 37 starts in the outfield.  A real speedster, Meyer has found a home in the outfield, covering acres of grass to deny hitters their success.  Before making her presence known in the outfield, she frequently made base running appearances, taking advantage of her quickness and speed to advance on even marginal hits.  Morgan is definitely a country girl at heart, but also hails from the Derby city, and also is a Mercy graduate.

Jordan McNary

To round out the true-lefty softballers, Jordan McNary shares a lot of traits with Morgan Meyer.  She's a senior speedster that patrols the outfield, appeared in 45, started 38.  She also tied with Vorbrink for triples.  Also a Kentuckian, McNary hails from Madisonville, and went to Hopkins County Central HS.

Volleyball Honorees

To the wide net, and another trio of lefties.

Gabbie Wiley

From Hannibal MO, and Hannibal High School, Gabbie Wiley had a great year as a defensive and serving specialist for the Cardinal squad that generally struggled through the year.  Gabbie played in a more attacking role in high school, and has taken a couple of years to adjust to playing a more defensively oriented role on the team, but came into her own this year, with several matches where she equalled Libero Molly Sauer's dig totals, with only half the rotations to do it in.  In service, the left-handed serve puts a different spin on the ball which tends to cause serve receive problems.  Notre Dame seemed particularly hapless this season in handling the southpaw spin.  Gabbie also was on the ACC Honor Roll and Athletic Director's Honor Roll, as a pre-med student, no less.  Gabbie was a junior this year.

Kali Eaken

The Cardinals primary setter this year, Kali also hails from Missouri, but from the city of fountains, Kansas City.  Kali initially committed to and enrolled at Kansas State, but after a redshirt freshman year, transfers to UofL to continue her career.  Eaken struggled with several injuries throughout the season, which limited her playing appearances some, but the impact when she was on the court was significant.

Morgan Miller

Morgan Miller comes to us from Magnolia, TX, the second recent Cardinal to hail from that town, following in the footsteps of Roxanne McVey, though they attended different high schools, but did play in the same club system.  The Cardinals are losing the play-her-anywhere services of Janelle Jenkins, who is graduating and heading off to be awesome in whatever she does, but Morgan Miller is from a similar mold.  A competent defensive player, with a good serve, those skills are probably the areas where she has the most room for improvement, as she is already, as a sophomore, a quite good hitter from anywhere on the court.  We don't see her hitting in the middle often, as UofL already has a great roster of middles, but I'm confident she could do a fine job of it.  Otherwise, swinging from the right, from the left, from the backrow, or maybe even not swinging at all, but instead setting others for attacks, she can do it all.  A true utility player with a great eye for the opponent's court, she has excellent ball placement on attacks.

Basketball Honorees

Sydney Zambrotta

"THREEEEEEEEEEEEE 'Z'" is already a common refrain from Cardinal PA guy Sean Moth.  This freshman sharpshooter hails from the venerable Christ The King high school in New York.  Zambrotta, who has also bolstered the ranks of the Cardinal Couple All-Syd/Sid/Szyd team, has already seem some clutch minutes, but we should only expect her contributions to grow as she progresses through her freshman year and further.  At Christ The King, Sydney also played Soccer in the fall, and Lacrosse in the spring, keeping busy all year around.

Asia Durr

Cardinal Couple seems to have an affinity for "Asia"'s, as we continue to follow the career of excellence of Asia Taylor currently tearing up the court in the land down under.  This Asia comes to us from Douglasville, GA and St. Pius X Catholic HS.  Really, who will ever forget her 36 point performance vs Syracuse a couple of weeks ago?  Another sharpshooter, she has just about the range of Shoni Schimmel, but plays great defense as well.  Durr has great handles, and can dribble drive with the best of them.  She's back at full speed this year after being hampered by injury somewhat during her freshman campaign.  We can't wait to see what the next 2 and a half years hold for this star, and for once we won't be excited for the final countdown.

Some Honorable Mentions

Nicole Pufahl

Softball has a couple of players that throw right handed, and I believe are predominantly right-handed, but bat left-handed, so we wanted to give them some love.

Lillie Goetz and Sidney Melton both bat left handed.  Frequently you'll see right handers bat left handed in Softball to be "slappers", but Lillie swings for power from the left side, with a pair of home runs in as many games, both grand slams, no less.  Sidney Melton also doesn't just slap at the ball, tallying some triples in the 2016.

An unusual combination, Nicole Pufahl (who's last name I still can't spell right without checking), throws left handed and bats right handed.  This suggests that she may be predominantly left handed, but learned to bat (with some serious power as well) right handed at some point.  Why?  We're not sure, but we're OK with it.

Radio Today

Today's broadcast will be pre-empted by "Baking with Paulie."  We'll be highlighting turnovers in today's baking show.  Do check it out, it should be a bunch of fun on WCHQ FM 100.9 or streaming at http://www.crescenthillradio.org.  As useless as I am in the kitchen, I'll be fetching coffee.

-- JMcA

Cardinal Couple - Election Day Edition

First Off

Because Cardinal Couple is a 501(c)3, I won't be taking any partisan positions here, but it is election Tuesday.  If you haven't done so, yet, either through early voting or just getting up earlier in the morning than I do, please go vote.  This is important stuff, all the way down-ballot, so please go vote for the candidate of your choice.

Volleyball

Paulie promised an analysis of the volleyball matches from the weekend, and you all probably know me well enough to know that I'm happy to oblige.

Duke

First up was Duke for the Friday match.  Duke is a pretty dern good team, sitting 2nd in the ACC just behind UNC trailing by only one match, though unranked nationally.  Duke has some height, and it shows in the blocking stats with the Blue Devils tallying 9 to our 3.  I feel somewhat like a broken record in saying that the Cards struggle against good blocking teams...FSU, UNC, Syracuse, and now Duke are prime examples of this.  I'll bring out one bright spot in this one.  UofL only committed 2 service errors, a refreshingly low number compared to many of the matches this season.

For individual kudos, Molly Sauer picked up 20 digs, which is a pretty impressive number for a 3 set match.  While Gabbie Wiley tallied 10, which is equally impressive (remember, she only has about half the rotations to get hers compared to Molly).  Also credit on this stat to Melanie McHenry with 8, and very impressively for a middle, Tess Clark got 5.  Somewhat counter-intuitively, I suspect as others get stronger in their passing, it lets Sauer take up less of the court, but (and here's the counter-intuitive part) increase her dig stats as she's able to get a more solid pass rather than trying to stretch her coverage so widely and her passing suffering for it.

The return of Janelle Jenkins to the line-up is almost certainly encouraging to the team, but she wasn't much of a factor in this one with only 1 kill and 4 digs.  The offensive highlights go to Tess Clark with 11 kills for .450, and Jasmine Bennett with 7 for .261.  These numbers (and the kills attempted numbers, 20 and 23 respectively) suggests that while we're getting our digs and passes, they may not be as on target as they should be, and indeed this was my impression from watching some of the match.  The more we can pass accurately, the more we can run middle attacks and the better we do as a team.

I continue to see improvement from Morgan Miller on the attack, with 6 kills, but errors bring her average down to only .074.  If she can clean up her play, she will be a force to be reckoned with.  Some of that will improve as our passing and digging improves.  Our outsides tend to get set with marginal quality sets because Kali Eaken is struggling to get to off-target passes, yet more examples of how one phase of play being off leads to a decrease in the stats of the following phases.  Melanie McHenry is also struggling with some of this.  She had 8 kills on 35 attempts for a .086 average.  That's a large number of swings, but she is frequently the only offensive option when our passes are off, so she is hitting into double and sometimes triple blocks which drops her success rate tremendously.  With another couple of years under her belt, she may figure out how to hit around and through those blocks a bit better, but she does very well for a freshman, and I remain super enthusiastic about her presence on the team.

Wake Forest

Wake Forest is a middle of the pack of the ACC team, but several positions ahead of Louisville in the standings, so the Cards sweep over the Demon Deacons represents something of an upset based on the conference standings.  No video on this one that I was able to find, so my impressions come completely from stats.  The Cards faced an additional challenge, though not an unfamiliar one, in this match as Kali Eaken was unavailable to play.  This moves Morgan Miller out of the hitting rotation and splitting time with Lindsay Palmer at setter.  This means that the Cards were certainly happy for the return of Janelle Jenkins back to the attacking ranks this weekend.

The offense was provided by the usual suspects, Melanie McHenry with 12 for .214, and the middles Tess Clark and Jasmine Bennett, (6 for .556!, and 7 for .545!).  Morgan Miller did double-duty by putting down 5 attacks relatively error-free for .200 as well as her setting duties.  Digging and passing was by committee, which is the way I really like it.  Molly Sauer had a relatively low total of 9, which was matched by Lindsay Palmer, McHenry got 7, 5 for Gabbie Wiley, 4 for Morgan Miller, 3 for Tess Clark, and 2 for Janelle Jenkins.  Service errors were back up to a higher number than I would like with 9, but thankfully Wake Forest gave most of those back with 7 miscues of their own.  An overall .272 hitting percentage isn't anything to write home about, but it's a step in the right direction.

Conclusions

The progress from the early season is significant, as fans we need to keep telling ourselves that, and as the team continues to clean up a few things, the results will improve.  Digging and passing remains our weakest link, but improvements are visible.  Many of the main contributors to the team are young and gaining experience quickly.  Don't give up on this team, they're a great bunch of folks, and aside from a bit of frustration at the results they're seeing, they are enthusiastic and see hope for the future.

- JMcA


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November is Cardinal Couple Donation Month

We won't talk about this much, today...given it is Election Day...but with voting comes the freedom to
choose. We hope you will exercise your freedom.

You also choose what you want to read on the Internet. We are glad you chose CARDINAL COUPLE today. We hope you come back. Often.

If you would like to donate to CARDINAL COUPLE, you can either send us a check or money order to CARDINAL COUPLE  PO Box 91521  Louisville, KY  40291  or donate to us on Pay Pal. WE won't make any campaign promises...we'll just promise to deliver the joy and excitement about Louisville women's athletics...and more...each and every day. That's a pretty good platform and we're happy to stand on it. I endorse this message.

Paulie

Wins and losses on a Saturday...Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball Struggles

A 1-2 weekend certainly isn't what Coach Anne Kordes had planned for the home opening weekend for Volleyball, but that's the result we're looking at now.  After dropping the 4-set match to what is looking like a very good Santa Clara team Friday night, the wide-netters split the day yesterday.

Stony Brook

They started the day with Stony Brook, a 10am start, some of which you heard in the background of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour if you tuned in.  Another 4-set affair, the Cardinals were victorious in this outing, 27-25, 25-8, 22-25, 25-19.  Take a second and look at the scores of those first two sets.  The tale is also told in the set hitting percentages.  In the first set, Stony Brook hit a passable .225, and then in the 2nd set, that dropped to a dismal -.200.  UofL told much the same tale in the 3rd and 4th sets, taking the loss in the 3rd after hitting only .088, and bring that back up to a respectable .316 in the 4th to finish the match.

Tess Clark
photo by Bryan Eaken

UofL has, in recent years had some excellent middle hitting, leaning on Tess Clark and Maggie DeJong for the past two years, and this year seeing Jasmine Bennett joining Clark in the middle.  The team has had a tough time getting the middle attack firing on all cylinders.  This is partly the legacy of Katie George's graduation.  With a new setter running the show, the hitters have to get on the same page with Kali Eaken on timing and placement of those quick sets in the middle to be at their most effective.  Clark seems to have taken the worst of this as Bennett has clearly inherited her father's leaping ability.  With great hang time, and a longer, lankier body type, Bennett is able to adjust on-the-fly and make something out of a set that may not have been in the ideal spot and time.  That having been said, Clark and setter Kali Eaken really started connecting in the Stony Brook match which bodes well for The Cards for the rest of the season.  Clark hit a very impressive .593 with 18 kills in the match.  As Eaken continues to fine tune the connection with Clark and Bennett, expect the Louisville middle attack to get even more potent.

Molly Sauer
photo by Bryan Eaken

Other performers in the match were Morgan Miller, hitting .333 with 11 kills on 24 attempts.  Miller isn't a big power hitter, but she can get the job done through finesse and placement at times.  That attack becomes more potent through experience and practice to develop the wisdom to be able to read the defense and place the ball appropriately.  Janelle Jenkins tallied 9 kills on 23 attempts for an acceptable .261.  She made contributions in other ways as well, getting in on 5 blocks and picking up 9 digs.  Molly Sauer continues to do Molly things, with 18 digs for the 4 sets, and Gabbie Wiley showed why she's getting time in the defense, picking up 11 digs.  Don't forget that Wiley, as a Defensive Specialist having to substitute traditionally, only gets about half the court time that Sauer does as the Libero with the freedom to enter and leave the match freely in place of Clark and Bennett.  Freshman phenom Melanie McHenry put down 11 kills on 30 attempts for a .200 average.

Auburn

The nightcap saw the matchup between UofL and Auburn.  Auburn, sporting a couple of Louisville-native players, brought a good crowd in support, along with a never-give-up attitude similar to that seen by The Cards in Bowling Green State last weekend.  Also similar, the need to go to 5 sets.

The Cards started this one off with a bang, taking the first two sets 25-15, 25-17, but then the wheels fell off, falling to the Tigers 14-25, 25, 22-25, 8-15.

UofL started off with a team hitting percentage of .483 in the first set.  Beyond that, well, things just aren't very pretty.  The team average dropped to .161 in the 2nd, .000 in the 3rd, showed a meager spark of life in the 4th at .219, which was pretty well extinguished in the 5th at .136.

Kordes has been looking to her team to serve aggressively this year, but last night the results weren't great.  While they did tally 5 services aces, they suffered 10 service errors to do it.  Of course, the point of serving aggressively isn't just to get aces, but as much to force a bad pass by the other team, taking them out of system and making it impossible to attack aggressively.  In general, the aggressive serving has done exactly that, but in a couple of cases so far this year, such as with Auburn, the opponent has been able to scramble to deal with a poor pass and, if not return a super-aggressive attack, at least put enough pepper on it to keep the Cards on their toes as well.  The difference in this match was that, in the first set, Auburn wasn't having much success in this, but started to put it together better and better as the match went on.

Jasmine Bennet
photo by Bryan Eaken

The stats sheet for this one didn't have much to be excited about.  The bright spot, again, is in the middle.  The Cards were out of system quite a lot, which effectively prevents utilizing the middle attack, but when they were able to get there, it was pretty effective.  Jasmine Bennett topped the kill percentage with .333, 8 kills on 18 attempts; with Tess Clark close behind with .308, 12 kills on 26 attempts.  Janelle Jenkins also topped double-digits with 12 kills on 41 attempts, for a .146 average...not exactly something to write home about.  Melanie McHenry put 14 away, but with 8 errors on 48 attempts, worked out to a .130 average...that's a lot of squandered opportunities.

McHenry may have been more valuable to the Cards as a defensive player in this match.  While Molly Sauer got the team high digs with 20, because of course she did, McHenry followed with 16.  Gabbie Wiley again covered a lot of floor defensively, accounting for 11 digs, matched by Kali Eaken.  Of course, having your setter taking digs is not ideal, so while it's a good accomplishment for Eaken, for best results overall, she should have fewer.

They're Not Getting Any Easier

The road ahead for the Kordes Krewe doesn't look to get any easier.  Next weekend is the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in North Carolina.  The host, currently 12th-ranked North Carolina, along with the currently 21st-ranked-but-probably-unranked-after-tomorrow Cards will match up against current number 2 and number 6, Wisconsin and Minnesota, respectively.  After that, is the Battle for the Bluegrass as Kentucky comes to the KFC Yum! Center.  Kentucky is currently 4-2, with losses to a quite good Southern California team, and a head scratching 3-0 loss to Northern Iowa.

Frankly, for the Cards to get wins against any of these three upcoming matches, they'll need to clean up the errors and just generally tighten up their gameplay.  The Eaken to Clark/Bennett pipeline is starting to get on the same page, but we'll need solid passing to enable Eaken to bring it into its full effect.

Field Hockey is Rolling

Another great with for the Sowry Sticks, with UofL Field Hockey winning decisively over Brown by a score of 7-1.  With a 22-4 shots advantage, and 16-2 shots-on-goal advantage, it's easy to understand why the Cardinals came out on top of this one.  Scoring credits go to newcomer graduate student Lizzie Gittens with two, and then a spread attack with one each to Shannon Sloss, Minout Mink, Lotta Kahlert, Taylor Stone, and Annie Himsworth.

Field Hockey will be in action again today at 1pm against the Richmond Spiders.  We'll need a win, or have to burn down Trager Stadium, just to be sure.

Radio With Background Noise

The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour broadcast from yesterday is up on the SoundCloud.  You can listen to me say "Uh" a lot, as well as revel in the background ambiance of a morning volleyball match at The KFC Yum! Center.

Really, I think the broadcast went pretty well, but I was definitely distracted by trying to do 4 or 5 different things at once.

LINK: https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20160903-live-from-the-kfc-yum-center

-- JMcA

Christmahanakwanzika Wishes -- Thursday Cardinal Couple

Christmahanakwanzika Wish Lists

It's that time again, when we write down our Christmahanakwanzika Wish List for various UofL Women's Sports teams.

Hey, last year I asked for a press box for Lacrosse and now we've got a spiffy new structure next to the railroad track beside Little Yum, so wishes do come true sometimes.

Volleyball

A sweet 16 (or beyond) appearance.  I've been to every UofL NCAA tournament volleyball in person since 2008, I believe, and I've never been to a volleyball sweet 16 (well, other than when it was hosted at the KFC Yum! Center, but I'm not counting that because UofL wasn't playing in it).  The program narrowly missed it this year, and I hope next year to see an even more improved team and further success in tournament play.

A 6-2 offense.  I've heard talk that this is being considered for next year.  6-2 offenses are, in my opinion, a lot of fun to watch.  We've got 3 good setters on the roster in Kali Eaken, Lindsey Palmer, and Morgan Miller.  When this was first mentioned to me, I was thinking Kali Eaken and Morgan Miller as the two setters, but a few days ago, I realized that Lindsey Palmer could have a major role as a setter in a 6-2.  We haven't seen Palmer running the offense as setter because, at 5'8", she's not a very effective blocker and with a traditional 5-1 offense, the setter needs to be able to block when they're in the front row.  With a 6-2, however, the setter is always playing out of the back row, so they don't need to be able to block.  We lose the setter dump that Katie George so loved, but that's a small price to pay for always having three attackers available in the front row.

Lacrosse

We've got a press box now, how about some concessions for the fans?  Or perhaps a permanent structure with a locker room for the visiting team.  Like Volleyball, a deeper run in the NCAA tournament beyond the second round would be great.

Tennis

For the both the men and women on this one.  More courts!  I've heard that this one might already be in the works as well.  It would likely take the form of adding more outdoor courts in front of the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center where the old soccer practice field is.  With the spiffy new Lynn Soccer Stadium, the practice field isn't really needed anymore, and the Tennis programs would benefit by being able to host full tournaments rather than just competitions against individual opponents.

Swimming and Diving

While it's not directly for the program, I wish for a successful Olympics in Rio for various current and former members of the Swimming and Diving squad.  This, also, is for both the men and the women.  We've talked a lot about Kelsi Worrell's success, but perhaps alumna Tanja Kyliannen could be representing her native Finland.  Joao de Lucca, for the men, will likely be representing Brazil and is a proud UofL alum.  On the current squad on the men's side, Sophomore Carlos Claverie could be making an appearance for Venezuela.

Basketball

I think our wish lists here probably all look a lot alike.

Let's call better rebounding a stocking stuffer as it has already improved considerably over the beginning of the season, but could still use some tightening up.

Lay-ups.

Lethargy-B-Gone for the defense.

Softball

Success in post-season play.  Ulmer recently got an upgrade, so there's not a whole lot to ask for from a facilities point of view.  Well, there are some things we could ask for, but that would be a bit greedy, so we'll skip those.

I'd like to see the UofL Softball team advance to a Super-Regional.  Softball hasn't had a great deal of NCAA tournament success in the past couple of years, not having won a game at all since the first game of the 2014 Regional against IPFW.  They have not advanced to a Super-Regional since I've been going to games at all.  Hopefully they'll do well enough that we would be hosting these events this spring, but if not, I'll certainly be looking to make an effort to road-trip for them.

I haven't put together lists for all of the women's sports teams, feel free to add some lists for other teams, or even add items for these teams in the comments.  I'd love to hear what you would like to see out of these programs. Our biggest wish of all, though...is that all our readers have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

-- JMcA

WBB to face Mich. St. in Big Ten/ACC Challenge...Volleyball adds transfer -- Thursday Cardinal Couple

CARDS VS. SPARTANS ON DEC. 3RD.

Louisville WBB will head to East Lansing, MI. to face Suzy Merchant's Michigan State Spartans in the BIG 10/ACC Challenge on Thursday, Dec. 3rd the leagues announced yesterday. 

Last year in the Cards first appearance in the event they blew out Lisa Bluder and the Iowa Hawkeyes 86-52 in Iowa City, IA that was a rematch of a 2014 NCAA Tournament game. 

Louisville has faced "Spartie" twice in the past, taking down MSU in the 2012 first round of the NCAA Tournament 67-55 and losing 82-73 in the 1990-91 season. 

Last season, MSU went 16-15 overall and posted a 7-11 Big 10 record. They do return honorable mention All-American Aerial Powers, who averaged 21.9 ppg for Merchant. 

All told, 14 games will be played over two days between the ACC and Big 10. The other matchups are:

Dec 2

Georgia Tech @ Indiana             Illinois @ Miami
Northwestern @ UNC                Ohio St. @ Notre Dame
Syracuse @ Maryland                 Iowa @ Virginia
Wisconsin @ Wake Forest

Dec 3

Boston College @ Purdue           Minnesota @ Duke
Rutgers @ Florida State             NC State @ Nebraska
Pittsburgh @ Michigan               Virginia Tech @ Penn State

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VOLLEYBALL ADDS KALI EAKEN

Anne Kordes announced Wednesday that redshirt freshman setter Kali Eaken is transferring to Louisville from Kansas State. 

Eaken sat out last season and will have four years of eligibility for the VolleyCards. 

She was recruited by Kordes when she was in high school and was a three-time Kansas All-State selection. She was named 2013-14 Gatorade Kansas Volleyball Player of the Year and 2013-14 First Team Under Armour All-American.

She'll add depth to a position that Katie George held last season. Lyndsay Palmer, a transfer from Gonzaga is also listed as a setter on the 2015 roster. The duo are in their last year of eligibility. 

Eaken is also solid in the classroom...being named to the Big 12  Commissioner's Honor Roll in the fall of 2014. 

paulie
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