Golf NCAA Regional Day One -- Softball to NCAA Tournament? -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Women's Golf in Seventh After Day One

Louisville women's golf sits in seventh place in their NCAA Regional after the opening day of action. The Cards finished the first day at 7-over-par 295, which is 11 strokes behind the first-place leader Oregon.

The current standings are:

-4  #2 Oregon

-1  #13 Texas

E  #11 Florida

+4  #33 TCU

+4  #28 Georgia

+5  #23 Arizona

+7  #38 Louisville

+8  #47 North Texas

+11  #50 Oklahoma

+14  New Mexico Sate

+14  Sam Houston

+21  Northern Arizona

The top four teams will advance to the NCAA Championships.

Lauren Thibodeau was the top performing Cardinal, shooting an even-par 72 to sit at 13th overall. Kendall Griffin and Carmen Griffiths are tied for 21st after shooting 2-over-par 72 on the day. Mairead Martin shot a 3-over-par 75 and Gabbi Bentancourt shot a 7-over-par 79.

Louisville tees off in the second day of action this morning at 10:00 MT (noon ET). The third and final round will be Wednesday. 

Softball to NCAA Tournament?

Following an unfortunate weekend sweep at #20 Notre Dame, Louisville Softball fell a spot to #40 in the rpi. Going into the ACC Tournament, finding a way to win is as important as can be. An opening round win against 9-seed Syracuse is a must. However, going up against 1-seed Virginia Tech in the second round is no easy task, but the Cards lost by one in the series opener against the Hokies a few weeks ago.

64 teams make the NCAA Tournament- 32 conference automatic qualifiers and 32 at-large bids. All the top teams in each conference winning their respective conference tournaments would help as well. 

A bracketology posting by College Sports Madness has Louisville in the Lexington Regional facing Robert Morris while Kentucky faces Wisconsin. Remember the last time a Kentucky team faced Robert Morris? (hint: Men's basketball NIT). 247 Sports has the Cards in the Lexington Regional as well but with Murray State replacing Robert Morris. Fast Pitch News puts Louisville in the Ann Arbor Regional with Michigan, South Carolina, and Miami (OH)

For now, it's time to take things one game at a time. 8-seed Louisville faces 9-seed Syracuse tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. and will be aired on ACC Network.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

WGolf to Final Day -- WBB -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Women's Golf Heads to Final Day of Moon Golf Invitational

After a 2-under-par 70 on the second day of the Moon Golf Invitational, Louisville women's golf heads into the final day in 12th place.

Gabbi Bentancourt led the Cards with a 2-over-74 to sit in 19th place. Agustina Gomez Cisterna was second for the Cards at even par-72 and 28th overall. Hana Ryskova sits at 56th while Carmen Griffiths and Mairead Martin are tied for 70th. Sitting at 79th, 81st, and 84th are Lauren Thibodeau, Molly Lynne, and Carly Haines, respectively.

The final round of the Moon Invitational concludes today.

Women's Basketball

Although the #1 seed in the ACC Tournament is officially out of reach and a tie for the ACC regular season title is nearly gone, Louisville women's basketball comfortably sits in second in the ACC and remains in the top four in the country.

Coming in at #4 in the most recent AP Poll, the Cards are in prime position to earn a 1-seed, but much more importantly, should host the opening two rounds of the ACC Tournament.

Louisville has two roads games left in the regular season, at Pittsburgh and then at Notre Dame. The Panthers are a bottom dweller in the conference this season with a 2-14 conference record and 11-16 overall record. Louisville *should* easily handle Pitt. Notre Dame is battling for the two-day bye in the ACC Tournament and sits tied with Virginia Tech for third with a 12-4 conference record. The Irish will be a force to be reckoned with in South Bend.

We will bring you more of a preview on Thursday and Paulie will break down the standings further tomorrow. We are also officially eight days away from the start of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Golf Ties for First -- Weekend Happenings -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Women's Golf Ties for First at Illini Invitational

Relying on a large rally heading into the final day of play at the Illini Invitational, Louisville Women's Golf shot an 11-under par to finish the event tied with #20 Georgia for first place.

Louisville was tied for fifth heading into the final day and posted a strong performance to leap up to first. The win is Louisville's first since taking home the title at the Cardinal Cup in 2019.

Kendall Griffin was the top Cardinal at the event with a final round score of 68 and overall score of 8-under-par to take second overall, individually. Lauren Thibodeau was right behind her with a 68 final-round score and a 6-under-par overall to place third.

Hana Ryskova shot a 2-under-par to finish tied for 18th. Carmen Griffiths shot a 3-over-par to finish 42nd. Mairead Martin was the final Cardinal in the event, finishing 50th after shooting a 5-over-par.

Louisville's fall season wraps up October 25-26 at the Club at Oldestone Invitational in Bowling Green, KY.

What to Watch for this Weekend

With the weekend swiftly approaching, plenty of fall sports are in action. With some of them in the home stretch, every match is crucial.

After dropping to #4 in the NFHCA Poll, Louisville Field Hockey travels to #12 Boston College for a 1:00 match. The Eagles are 9-3 overall, but sit at fifth in the conference with a 1-2 mark. The Cards are tied with Syracuse at the top with a 3-0 record. The Cards then travel to visit a 4-9 Northeastern squad on Sunday at noon.

#2 Louisville Volleyball is also on the road, with a Friday match against Virginia Tech and a Sunday match against Wake Forest. The Hokies are 9-9 on the year and the Demon Deacons are 10-7. The two foes are a combined 1-11 in conference play. The Cards should bring out the brooms for both matches, *hopefully*.

Louisville Women's Soccer only has one match this weekend, but they hope to stop the bleeding with a bounce back victory over Boston College at Lynn Stadium on Friday at 4:00 p.m. It's another double header with the men's team facing North Carolina shortly after the women's match ends. BC is 6-7-1 on the year and 0-6 in conference play so let's hope the Cards can cruise to a multi-goal performance victory to move up to 12 points in conference play.

Oh yeah, by the way, we are exactly three weeks away from the Louisville Women's Basketball exhibition at the KFC Yum! Center and the WBB Tipoff Luncheon is 15 days away on Oct 29th at the Galt House. 

Jeff Walz, Hailey Van Lith and Kianna Smith spent yesterday in Charlotte, NC at the ACC's WBB Media Day. No earth-shaking program or personnel information was revealed in Walz's chat with Packer and Durham or Van Lith and Smith's appearance on "Nothing But Net". We did find out, however,  that Van Lith hits the golf ball in low line drive fashion off the tee and Walz unveiled a life lesson:  "If the grass looks greener on the other side, it's because of the bull s#&% over there fertilizing it."  Deb Antonelli seemed to be stuck on the query "Dana who?" --( about what you'd expect from a NCST grad)... 

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Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

Golf Final Results -- WSoc Travels to Notre Dame -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Women's Golf Finishes Seventh

Louisville Women's Golf wrapped up their final day of play at The Blessings Intercollegiate in Arkansas yesterday. The Cards finished the invitational tied for sixth overall.

A pair of Cards had high finishes in the event. Hana Ryskova finished tied for 9th with a final score of 218 (+2). The junior shot a 71-74-73. Kendall Griffin finished tied for 20th. The graduate transfer had a final score of 224 (+8) by shooting a 77-72-75.

Lauren Thibodeau and Carmen Griffiths went back-to-back at 32nd and 41st with scores of 230 (+14) and 235 (+15), respectively. The last Cardinal to participate in the event was Mairead Martin. The senior finished 47th with a score of 240 (+24).

The Cards head to Champaign, Ill., next weekend for the Illinois Invitational.

WSOC Cards Travel to Notre Dame

Louisville Women's Soccer looks to ride off the momentum of an overtime victory against Wake Forest as they face #24 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. The Cards and Irish are set to kick off at 8:00 p.m., on Bally Sports South, the same channel Louisville Volleyball and Louisville Football were on last weekend.

The Cards are 7-2-1 on the year with a 3-1 record in conference play. The nine points in the ACC puts the Cards fourth behind Florida State (12), Notre Dame (12), and Virginia (10).

Notre Dame enters the match 10-1-1 on the year and a perfect 4-0 mark in the ACC. Offense has been the 'Name of the Game' for the Irish, who have scored 34 goals on the year. Notre Dame has outscored opponents 15-2 in their four ACC matches.

Missouri took down the Irish 3-2 in overtime earlier this year and Indiana was able to force a 0-0 draw. The ACC victories came against Syracuse (4-0), Miami (5-0), Boston College (4-1), and NC State (2-1).

Grad student Sammi Fisher leads the team with eight goals, which ranked eighth in the country. Ashley Naylor has been part of a three person rotation, but has logged the most minutes at 518. She has five saves and a .625 save percentage. Her partners in goal have logged a combined 588 minutes with 21 saves.

Louisville hasn't been great over the years against Notre Dame, sitting at 4-12-1 all-time. However, the Cards are 3-4-1 in the last eight outings with two of those going into overtime and none of them having a goal differential of more than two.

Jared Sez: 

It wouldn't be a surprise to see Louisville revert to the five-person back line again in hopes to slow the Notre Dame offense. However, unlike the match against Florida State, I hope the Cards will be more aggressive with a counter attack.

The 'Park the Bus' style gameplay is great -- in trying and preventing a team from scoring several goals, but hasn't provided any chances for a counter offensive. Usually, this strategy will most likely end in a clean sheet for the opponent. If Louisville can keep a couple of attackers forward and get Notre Dame on their heels, the Cards can pull off the upset.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

USA U 19 over Australia -- Golf on the Mind -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

USA U 19 wins opener against Aussies 79-56

The Jeff Walz coached USA U 19 team used a 16-2 third quarter run to pull away from Australia in Bangkok early this morning and went on to win thei opener in Group C play 79-56.

Walz started Rhyne Howard, Naz Hillmon-Baker, Aliyah Boston, Hailey Van Lith and Paige Bueckers and USA jumped out to an early 5-0 lead. That early lead held through the first 10 minutes and the first quarter ended with USA up 19-14. 

Australia came out strong in the second quarter and cut the lead to 21-20 with 7:40 left in the first half. They tied it at 21-21 and remained close the remainder of the second quarter, although they never took the lead. Reserve Queen Egbo scored four straight points to give USA a 34-32 lead with 1:49 left in the half and a Bueckers three made it 37-32 with a minute left. The Aussies ended the half on a 3-0 run, though, and the USA went to the half with a 39-35 lead.

Walz brought the same starting five out to start the second half, and increased defensive pressure paid dividends. A 6-0 run got USA off to a good start and they got two straight threes from Howard to push the lead to 55-37. It was a 16-2 run for the Americans and they ended the third quarter with a 60-39 lead, outscoring Australia 21-4 over the ten minutes. 

The Aussie would never get closer than 16 points in the final ten minutes, as Walz tried a variety of combinations on the court. 

Five in double figures for USA -- Bueckers led them with 11 points -- and Van Lith, Egbo, Hillmon-Baker and Howard totaled 10 each. USA shot 33% from the floor and held the foe to 27.7% shooting. USA won the rebounding battle 62-52 and forced 22 Australian turnovers. 

USA U 19 continues Group play tonight at 1 a.m. against South Korea.

You Tube has replays available in case you don't want to staay up that late. No commentary or play-by-play -- just straight out basketball...which is different but interesting.

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Thibodeau Could Join Hartlage

Last week I wrote about Lauren Hartlage qualifying, yet again, for the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship. Earlier this week, teammates Lauren Thibodeau and Delaney Shah were set to compete in Massachusetts to join her. The event in Brockton took place on Monday and four women qualified to advance to the championship. Neither Cardinal was one of the four. As far as I can tell, Shah never competed in the event, as her name does not appear on the results page, even as having withdrawn. However, Thibodeau does still have a chance to make it to the Championship. Lauren shot a 1-over on the course, tied with two others for fifth place. For reasons unknown, she is listed as the first alternate should one of the four qualifiers drop out. We wish her the best as she waits it out and Lauren Hartlage the best of luck at the Championship event in early August.

The Open Championship

One of golf's biggest weekends is underway, as the major across the pond has been ongoing since early Thursday morning. A couple of connections drew me to this topic this morning. First, Louisville golfer Matthias Schmid qualified for the event. Schmid finished last season at UofL with the best stroke average in school history. He qualified for The Open by winning the European Amateur Championship last month. I'm not sure how competing in professional event in golf jibes with all of the NCAA rules, but the NCAA rules around player compensation are so goofy I don't even feel like exploring it this morning. Schmid played decently Thursday and Friday, shooting +4 and +1, respectively, but failed to make the cut to continue the weekend. It was a tough course, but the cut fell in at +2, putting Schmid out in the cold with the likes of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods. At least he didn't shoot +27 like David Duval. 

The second connection to The Open is Kentuckian (and my cousin) J.B. Holmes leading the dang thing. After a Thursday in which he was one of three people to reach -5 on the day and the only one to stay there, J.B. had a solo lead. He continued to shoot well enough on Friday, notching a -3 on the day to sit tied after two days for the lead with Shane Lowry. Holmes has five tour wins since joining in 2006. He has finished in the top five at a major twice, both in 2016 with his best finish being 3rd at The Open that year. He and Lowry will tee off in the final pairing later this morning.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

As Jared mentioned yesterday, we are back today for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour on WCHQ FM. All four primary fools will take their seats in the studio and we'll see if we are closer to or farther from some sort of UofL athletics topic this week than last. Apparently there will be a quiz and there is a good chance it is about mascots. As all of us performed fairly well on the last mascot quiz, I imagine this one will take a turn to the more difficult side. Catch WCHQ at 100.9 FM, the WCHQ App, wchqfm.com, or on Facebook Live. The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour is live at 11AM and available linked in Sunday's article (typically) as a replay.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Quick News Roundup -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

It's been a surprisingly busy week for current and former Louisville Cardinals across all sports considering we are in the heat of summer. I'll leave the volleyball news from the World University Games to Jeff for tomorrow, but plenty happened this week otherwise. Let's take a quick look. 

Swimming/Diving at the WUGs

Three former and current Cards took on the world in Italy during the World University Swimming and Diving events. Diver Molly Fears was the University of Louisville's first diver ever to compete for the USA. She ultimately finished 11th. Daniel Sos and Gregory Tarasevich represented Hungary and Russia, respectively. Sos finished 6th in the 200m IM and 19th in the 400m IM while Tarasevich earned a gold medal and two silver medals in the 100m backstroke, the 200m backstroke, and the 4x100 medley relay.

Hartlage Heading Back to Amateur Championship

Lauren Hartlage will be making her third straight appearance in the USGA Women's Amateur Championship after she finished tied for first in the Walnut Grove Country Club Sectional Qualifier in Dayton, Ohio. Hartlage shot a 3-under and, coincidentally, tied for first out of 75 competitors with a person right next to her in the alphabet. While Hartlage finished with a 69 on the 18 hole course, I shot a beautiful 64 on the par 3, 9 hole course by my house yesterday. I'd say I'm right on her heels. Fellow Cardinals Delaney Shah and Lauren Thibodeau will compete in their own sectional qualifier in Massachusetts on Monday. They'll be fighting to join Hartlage in the 156 player field for the tournament, which will take place August 5-11 at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Mississippi.

Fuehring Leaving the States

After being cut by the Washington Mystics, Sam Fuehring was unable to land a contract with another WNBA team for this season. According to her Twitter, Fuehring was quite frustrated with the fact that she had to get a job when she clearly believed that she should be playing professional basketball. This is a common trend for athletes (the Knicks should sign Russ Smith) and you can never fault them for believing in their abilities. Fuehring's call to the basketball universe was answered, as she has agreed to a contract with Eisvogel USC Freiburg in the German DBBL. Fuehring will join former Cardinal Peyton Siva in Germany, who has thrived in his opportunity in Deutschland. Siva recently resigned for a two year extension with Alba Berlin. Here's hoping Sam enjoys her time across the pond as much as Siva and can carve out a place for herself in the league.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

The A-Team is back in the studio today after a few mix and match weeks. Daryl will be down on the Waterfront getting her Forecastle on (stay hydrated all you hooligans heading out there), but Paulie, Jeff, Jared, and I will bring you the joy and excitement of Louisville women's sports during the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. We'll have plenty of news and prognostications to discuss, and we'll even have the patented Worldwide Quiz. Tune in to WCHQ FM at 11AM via 100.9FM, the WCHQ App, wchqfm.com, or on Facebook Live.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-