A History of UofL Women's Sports: Chapter I -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

To help get through summer I have decided to give a brief history of each women's sports team at Louisville.  There are 12 women's sports at UofL, giving me something to talk about for the next 12 Fridays.  Although folks might think we're experts here at Cardinal Couple we're far from it and constantly try to educate ourselves and stay updated on the women's sports.



A History of UofL Women's Sports: Chapter I -- Volleyball

With volleyball being the next UofL team to play this calendar year and the first to kick off the 2019-2020 school year I figured there's no better place to start!  So buckle up and hang on tight because here we go!

Louisville Volleyball had its inaugural season in 1977.  Susan Johns coached the Cards to a 4-18 record that season and went on to coach two more years after that.  After an 0-3 start Louisville got a 2-0 sweep for their first ever victory.

Scott Luster took over as head coach in 1980 and went five seasons in that position.  He guided the Cards to their first winning season in 1981, finishing 26-18.  He would lead them to two Metro Conference championships in 1982 and 1984 and their first NCAA appearance in 1982.

Bob McCarthy took was Luster's successor but had a short three-year career as head coach.  McCarthy never had a winning season and he was quickly replaced.

Don Hardin entered the scene in 1988 and oversaw the team for eight years.  UofL had a winning season every year he was there and won the Metro Conference from 1990-1994.  In his final season at Louisville the university moved to Conference USA.  Louisville went undefeated in conference play and advanced to the NCAA 2nd round that year. Hardin moved on to take over the program at Illinois and retired from there at the end of the 2008 season.

Leonid Yelin took over the program after Hardin left and reigned for 15 years, the longest of any Louisville volleyball coach.  His team had a winning record every season he was there and never lost more than 12 games in a season under his watch.  This is when Louisville started to become nationally recognized.  They won 10 conference championships between Conference USA and the Big East.  All four of Louisville's Sweet Sixteen appearances came under Yelin.  Yelin was also the first to heavily recruit foreign players- a major contribution to the program's success. Yelin supposedly "retired" from coaching at the end of the 2010 season, but took the job at Syracuse the next season and he is still the head coach for the Orange.

Anne Kordes replaced Yelin at the helm, becoming the second woman coach for Louisville volleyball and the first coach who was a former player on the team. Kordes came in from St. Louis University, where she had built the Billikins into a feared and strong mid-major program.

In her six seasons from 2011-2016, Louisville won four conference championships, including becoming the first women's team at Louisville to win an Atlantic Coast Conference championship. Kordes retired after the 2016 season to spend more time with her daughter and family.

She is heavily involved with KIVA Volleyball at the OVVC these days, a nationally recognized facility and program which her father helped inaugurate and establish.

In 2017, Dani Busboom Kelly became the seventh coach for Louisville volleyball.  In her first year, she guided the Cards to a conference championship.  The Cards have played in the NCAA Tournament both seasons under Kelly, who is set to begin her third season as head coach this fall.

Their current home is the newly renamed L&N Federal Credit Union Cardinal Arena, which saw a major revamp before the start of the 2017 season.  Cardinal Arena served as the home for the Cards the longest of any venues with the KFC Yum! Center serving as host for a couple years and a 43-20 record.  In the early days it was duPont Manual High School's gymnasium that was the home of the Cards, where they hold an 88-64 record.  The Cards in Cardinal Arena surpassed 200 wins in 2017.

Besides the main three home locations the Cards have also played home matches in the
Commonwealth Convention Center, the Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville Gardens, Sacred Heart Academy, Seneca High School, Ballard High School, New Albany High School, Jennings County High School, Louisville Gardens, and Knights Hall (Bellarmine).  The KICC (2-3) is the only home site where Louisville holds a losing record.

A memorable game to note last season when the Cards had Notre Dame coming to town but power was lost several hours before the match in Cardinal Arena. A wild bit of venue relocation searching ensued before it was determined that Sacred Heart's gymnasium was available for the evening. The Cards won a memorable five set match in a fully-packed Valkyries gym. The power of social media got the relocation out to the season-ticket base and fans and they even gave everyone a free bottle of water!

Louisville has broken 5000 in attendance twice at home, both against Kentucky at the KFC Yum! Center.  Their largest Cardinal Arena crowd was in 1994 against Texas when 1253 people crammed together to watch the NCAA Tournament.  During an NCAA Tournament game in 2005, 14,438 people filled the Qwest Center to see Louisville take on Florida.

Over the years Louisville has formed rivalries with some foes.  Kentucky, Louisville's largest rival across the board, is 29-27 against the Cards.  Cincinnati was a big rival for a long time and just renewed its rivalry for the season, but the Cards hold a 41-11 edge, and is the most wins against any NCAA team.  Despite rough seasons early on Louisville has lost to just two schools more than 15 times: Kentucky and Notre Dame.

Despite having an arsenal of well-known players, several USA Collegiate National Team representatives, and nearly a dozen All-Americans in players such as Lola Arslanbekova, Gwen Rucker, Katie George, Caitlin Welch, Laurie Maxwell, and many more, only three former "VolleyCards" have made their way into the UofL Athletics Hall of Fame: Stephanie Storen Jett, Laurie Maxwell Londot, and Susan Elpers Inman.

Louisville is set to begin their 43rd season in just under three months.  They'll host the free Red and Black Scrimmage on August 17th at 6 p.m. before starting the season with seven straight home matches. 78 days to Volleyball !!


Make sure to catch the Cards at L&N Federal Credit Union Cardinal Arena where you will catch myself and Worldwide most every home match with special guest appearances from Paulie and Case from time-to-time.

Come back to the site next Friday for Chapter II as we cover the history of another UofL women's sport.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

It'll be "slim pickens" on air tomorrow and we don't mean the late TV, movie and rodeo star.

With Case selling his yard to the highest bidder, Daryl continuing to travel everywhere and give Jeff a run for his money for the nickname "Worldwide", and myself back to counting change and looking out for counterfeits...only Paulie and the original Worldwide will be on air to talk women's sports.  Will they have another world famous Cardinal Couple quiz?  They'll have some WNBA and a few other topics to discuss so make sure you tune in!

Happy Friday and Go Cards!

Jared

Volleyball and Field Hockey...SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Blocks Syracuse

In a Friday night matchup filled with familiar faces, Syracuse got the lion's share of the blocks, but Louisville came away with the victory in four sets (25-12, 22-25, 25-16, 25-18). The evening honored former members of the UofL program from alumnae players,

Syracuse, coached by former Louisville skipper Leonid Yelin, came in prepared to put a lot of blocks at the net...and they did, winning the blocking category 13-7.5 (in volleyball stats, if three players go up for a block, they each get credited with "half" of a block meaning the total can come out with some number "and a half", which is weird, but it's the way it work in Volleyball). But a game isn't decided with just blocking, and UofL did lot's of other things right to come away with the win.

Notably, The Cards were able to run a really quick offense and get the ball to the hitters before The 'Cuse could get their blocks up in place. With a defense completely designed around good blocking, the rest of the defense was easy pickings for The Cards offense committee.

The match started out with some ugly early service errors by the Cards, but once the early match jitters and the worst of the service errors were over, the Cards settled in ran the score out to a relatively easy win. In a rough second set, with some sloppy passing slowing down the pace of the offense, Syracuse was able to get their blocking engaged and stop the Louisville attack.

After the set break, UofL got their passing back on target and was able to get the offensive pace back up to the speed they wanted. Once they got back to beating out the blocks, they got a couple of relatively easy wins to close out the match.

Erin Fairs tallied the most kills with 16 on 35 swings, for an acceptable .229 percentage. Joining her in double-digit kills was Janelle Jenkins with 12 on 40 tries, for .200, which is relatively error free hitting. Tess Clark also got a dozen on 20 attempts, and with only three miscues, that gives her a whopping .450 percentage. The other side of our middle power duo showed what efficiency is like as well, with eight out of 15 for Maggie DeJong for .400.


We did see the return of Maya McClendon to the floor, after not seeing any playing time in the past two matches. Her role was limited, but she did get a few swings out of the back row for a very efficient .400 on a, notably mistake free, 5 attempts. Molly Sauer continues to patrol the back row with a level of play beyond what is normally expected from a freshman, getting 29 digs, and claiming two service aces.

This one was streamed on ESPN3, so if you missed it, you can go catch an on-demand replay. The VolleyCards will be back in action Sunday against Boston College.

Duke Rains on Field Hockey's Day

Field Hockey headed southeast to play against Duke on Tobacco Road. The dominant player may have been Hurricane Joaquin, soaking the playing field. The rains may have given the UofL squad some challenges, as Duke got an early goal and kept that lead into halftime.

The Cards held a 3-1 advantage on penalty corners, but this is a Louisville squad that has not been able to capitalize on penalty corners very well all year resulting in a 5-3 shot advantage for Duke at halftime.

The same basic pattern continued in the second half, with Duke getting the only score, and outshooting the Cards 6-4, but UofL getting more penalty corners 5-3.

UofL takes the loss against another former coach in Pam Bustin, and returns to play Sunday against UMass.

RADIO TODAY

The CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR airs today at 11 a.m. on WCHQ 100.9 FM locally and streaming live on the Internet at www.crescenthillradio.com

We have a great show planned for you today with recaps and discussions on volleyball, field hockey and soccer. We'll also put out the Worldwide Quiz for you and we invite you to see if you can beat my steamed colleague. 

jmca

Women's Soccer grounds Eagles...Field Hockey and Volleyball face tests today -- Friday Cardinal Couple

HABUDA'S GOAL CARRIES CARDS TO 1-0 WIN OVER MOREHEAD

Isabella Habuda's follow up on a deflected shot on goal (or pass?) from Rachel Avant that hit the goal post at the 20 minute mark of the first half proved to be the only offense Louisville Women's Soccer needed Thursday night in a 1-0 win over Morehead in Lynn Stadium.

Habuda had a busy night for the Cards, taking five of UofL's 15 shots and two of their seven shots on goal. The sophomore from Belle River, Ont. scored her second goal of the season in a contest that was dominated by the Cards on both offense and defense. 

Louisville (5-5-1) held the Eagles (4-7-1) to a mere four shots and no shots on goal... goalkeeper Taylor Bucklin and defenders Inger Katrine-Bjerke and Hannah Konermann all logging 90 minutes on defense and turning away all Eagles attempts to find the net.

It was the third straight game Louisville women's soccer has played that had a 1-0 final score. Six of the Cards 11 contest this year have been 1-0 affairs...the Cards have gone 3-3 in these one-goal contests. 

Louisville returns to ACC play Sunday with a trip to Syracuse and then comes home to face #1 North Carolina, #22 Duke and #2 Florida State in a 11-day span before heading to play #3 Virginia. 

Hear Paulie's post-game interviews with head coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes, Isabella Habuda and Gabrielle Vincent at the link below:

COACH AND PLAYER COMMENTS AFTER MOREHEAD WIN

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#9 FIELD HOCKEY VS #5 DUKE TODAY

The battle against top-flight ACC squads continues for Justin Sowry's stick-swingers against Duke today in Durham, NC. 

Louisville will look for their first ACC win of the season against former UofL Field Hockey coach Pam Bustin. The Cards (6-3, 0-3) will face a Blue Devils squad (6-3, 0-2) bent on revenge after Louisville pulled the upset on them last season at Trager Field. 

Stephanie Byrne leads the Louisville squad with six goals on the season. Freshman goalie Ayeisha McFerran is ranked in the top 20 in several NCAA Field Hockey stats. 

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VOLLEYBALL IN THE KFC YUM! CENTER TONIGHT

Anne Kordes' Louisville Volleyball squad will look to extend their win streak to three when they face the Syracuse Orange tonight in the KFC YUM! Center at 7 p.m.

Louisville is undefeated (2-0) so far in ACC play and will face former Cardinal coach Leonid Yelin and his Syracuse squad that is 11-2 overall and also 2-0 in ACC matches. 

The Cards have had strong production from outside hitters Erin Fairs and Aniah Philo during the win streak and freshman libero Molly Sauer is a strong candidate for ACC Volleyball Freshman of the Year. 

paulie
xxxxx

Cardinal Couple Thursday

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Jeff McAdams brings us news on the Volleyball schedule
and it looks like Sam Purcell hasn't spent his last 13 days in
Louisville in vain...the "official announcement" is out. He's a
UofL WBB assistant coach.)

Volleyball Schedule

 

Volleyball announced their fall schedule and it starts off with a bang.  Unfortunately, like last year, the later season matches aren't going to give us much challenge.

First, though, we have our first chance to see the team play together on August 24th for the annual Alumnae celebration.  If there are enough alumnae that choose to participate, the match will be vs alumnae, otherwise, it would be a red vs black match.  This is a free, unticketed, event at Cardinal Arena.

The regular season starts the next weekend with two matches at the Penn State Invitational against Syracuse and, obviously, Penn State.  Talk about starting the season off with the best.  Syracuse is a non-conference foe this year, of course.  Its nice to keep the familiarity of them fresh for when we meet back up with them in the ACC in 2014.  Their coach is the former UofL head coach, Leonid Yelin with Assistant Coach, UofL Alumna, Stephanie Cantway nee Marsh.  Leonid has continued his international recruiting ways with several players from Poland, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, and The Russian Federation.  Penn State, with head coach Russ Rose is, as always loaded for bear.  The storyline on this one is a sister vs sister matchup.  Deja McClendon, out of Manual High School here in Louisville, is the sister to incoming UofL freshman Maya McClendon.

The next trip is to North Dakota to match up with North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, and
Wisconsin.  No real catchy story lines for these matches.  North Dakota and Northern Iowa are competent teams, but neither should be much of a threat for the UofL team, but we need to be wary of Wisconsin.  While their results from last year aren't all that impressive, having dropped matches to Indiana, Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Creighton, this is a team that can be a threat.

Still on the road, but closer to home anyway, the next weekend sees the Cardinals down the road in Lexington for The Bluegrass Battle.  This involves matches against, of course, Kentucky, but also Minnesota and Pepperdine.  Kentucky, well...in-state rivalry match.  While I think UofL typically has a better team than Kentucky, Craig Skinner's Wildcats seem to play very well against us, so they're a team that we always have to be ready to play.  Minnesota will be a heck of a match-up.  Last year they split with Nebraska, Texas, Michigan and Michigan State.  They beat Illinois twice, and Purdue three times.  They, did, however, lose to Penn State three times, but there's no shame in that.  Pepperdine has an absolutely amazing men's team typically, but in women's volleyball they seem to be only mediocre with loses to Dayton, UCLA, BYU, and Colorado State among others.

Louisville finally gets their home opener on September 20th for the annual Active Ankle Challenge at Cardinal Arena.  The Cardinals play host to future ACC conference foe Virginia Tech, as well as Rice and Bowling Green.  Virginia Tech is the only real challenge this weekend, but not much of one.

Then the American Conference slate of matches.  We play all of these home and away, but there really won't be much challenge from most of them.  Memphis, Temple, Southern Methodist, Houston, USF, UCF (Central Florida), Cincinnati, Rutgers, and UConn.  Of those, Cincinnati is frequently a good team, though they really had a rough year last year with new coach Molly Alvey, hopefully they can get things put back together this year.  USF can put together a good team at times as well.  Beyond those two, we really shouldn't have all that much of a threat from our conference slate games.

There are two other non-conference matches mixed in with the conference match-ups, with Wichita State and Middle Tennessee State.  We've played both of these teams several times and they both are good.  Neither is a national powerhouse, but they're good, which will be nice to have some solid teams to play in the midst of a thoroughly mediocre conference schedule.

There is no conference tournament in the American Conference, so the winner of the regular season gets the automatic qualifying bid for the NCAA tournament.

Sam Purcell officially announced as Assistant Coach for Basketball

Nearly two weeks after we broke the news here at Cardinal Couple, Sam Purcell was officially
announced as the new assistant coach for Jeff Walz.  Joining us from Georgia Tech, Sam Purcell replaces Cameron Newbauer who took the head coaching position at Belmont University in Nashville.

Prior to his stint with the Yellow Jackets, Sam was an assistant at Tulsa.  He started his basketball staff duties at Auburn, which is also his Alma Mater.

-Jeff McAdams

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Soccer, Volleyball post Friday Wins

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SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- Soccer nips Cincy in double overtime

- Volleyball sweeps in Syracuse

Whitfield's goal leads Cards to 2-1 win

It took 106 minutes, but Louisville avoided a tie with the Cincinnati Bearcats and clinched the #3 seed in the upcoming BIG EAST Tournament with a hard-fought win last night in Cardinal Park. 

"Rivalry games always bring out the best in teams and tonight was no different. You have to credit Cincy for the way they competed tonight. Our team continued to fight and persevere throughout the game and it paid off in the end."  - Louisville head soccer coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes.

The Bearcats opened the scoring in the 16th minute of the first half, Liz Miller getting her first goal of the season, off a header which floated past Louisville goalie Chloe Kiefer. That lead held as the teams went to intermission and deep into the second half. 

In the 70th minute of play, Charlyn Corral sent a free kick following a UC penalty over the Cincinnati defenders and safely into the net to record her eighth score of the season. 

Neither team could produce in the first O.T., but with just four minutes remaining in the final overtime, Casey Whitfield followed up on a missed shot attempt by Corral and scored her fourth goal of the year...tapping it in to end the contest. 

Chloe Kiefer had seven saves for Louisville (10-4-3, 5-3-3) and the Cards attempted a record 37 shots in the contest.

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Lola and Gwen spark Volleyball win

We've typed the name Lola Arslanbekova, it seems a thousand times here at CARDINAL COUPLE and she gets the kudos again today for her 18 kill effort against the Orange yesterday in Syracuse. Gwen Rucker also stepped up big for UofL with six kills and five blocks in the 25-23, 25-12, 25-18 three-set win for the Cards.

Ex-Cards coach now head man
at Syracuse

Louisville (19-3, 8-1) jumped out to an early 12-6 advantage in game one but a strong rally by the Leonid Yelin coached Syracuse team tied the game at 21-21. The Cards rolled off the next three points, though...getting a service ace from Katie George in the process...to get to set point and held on to get the two-point win.

The Cards roared out to another early lead in the second game and were never seriously challenged by Syracuse...up 17-8 and finishing the game on a 8-4 run.

Syracuse tried to rally after the break and did managed to take the Cards to a 15-15 tie. After a Anne Kordes timeout, the Cards regrouped and grabbed 10 of the final 13 points to produce the victory.

The Cards continue the road trip Sunday with a crucial match against the Marquette Golden Eagles. MU is 17-3 on the year and sits atop the BIG EAST standings with a perfect 7-0 record...heading into this weekend's action.

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Sean and Sam with Charlie

Finally, congratulations to Sean Thompson and his lovely bride Samantha Schaefer for tying the knot last night at St. Joseph Catholic Church!

I've watched the (then) little guy grow up and become a great young man who is now married to a sweet and caring girl in Samantha. The reception was at the Mellwood Arts Center and a total blast...which is why the ol' CARDINAL COUPLE is a little late this morning...celebrate good times, c'mon! Woo-hoo!
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..
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The final word on WBB Big East 2012 Tourney...Yelin to Buffs...Scholarships...

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WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE PRESENTS:

Julie Hermann attends
 a lot of women's sports
events at UofL each year.

-We hear from Julie Hermann

-Leonid Yelin to Colorado

-Would Pitino's 'walk-on' move been duplicated by Walz?

Julie Hermann is the Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director at the University of Louisville. She's also a pretty friendly and interesting person to talk to if you run into to her at a UofL women's athletic event. Chances are you will, she attends 100's of them every year. Her recognition by Cardinal fans is nearly
100%...we asked 12 random Cardinal fans a few months ago..."Have you heard of Julie Hermann" and 11 of them were correctly able to identify her. The
lone 'unable to identify' guessed she was a UofL women's basketball recruit. Yep, we're all ate up with this UofL women's basketball team...for sure.

We posed a question to Julie last night about the confusion over the 2012 BIG EAST Women's Basketball Tournament...via e-mail...and had our answer within two hours. Pretty impressive stuff, Ms.Hermann...It takes Paul longer than that to spell check and re-write a three paragraph article.

Here is the final and definitive response to the question. We'll let nature take its course from here and see what the BIG EAST decides on. Julie writes:

"Paul...the associate commissioner misrepresented the process that started the confusion. She has since corrected it on the original blog. Believe me, if Tom (Jurich) could host it or was given that opportunity, we would ABSOLUTELY be "ready" thanks to our fans and the KFC YUM!"

So, there you go. We're still going to prognosticate that it'll be held in Hartford...but we're hoping to be pleasantly surprised by different news on the subject. We'll update your here at CARDINAL COUPLE on further developments and we thank Julie for her timely, informative and clear response.

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Looks like retirement didn't set too well with former UofL Volleyball head coach Leonid Yelin. Word comes out of Boulder, Colorado  that Yelin has been named an assistant coach for the Colorado Buffaloes volleyball program. Liz Kritza, head volleyball coach at Colorado, comments:

Gwen Rucker is a stand-out
volleyball player at UofL and
will be coached by Anne Kordes
this year.

"Adding a coach of Leonid's caliber and experience is a significant step for this program. The success he has had at every stop and the wealth of experience he has in building programs into national contenders will be integral to the future success here at CU."

Yelin, who was the head coach at Louisville for 15 years, recorded a 366-112 record at Louisville. The Cards made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances during his stay here. He had this to say about his new job:

"I am very happy to be a part of the University of Colorado athletics family. Coming to a great school with a strong academic reputation as well as a very respectable athletic tradition is something I am very excited about. With the move to the Pac-12, the best conference in the nation, I feel a new era is dawning for all the athletic programs here, especially for women's volleyball."

We wish Yelin all the success in his new job with the Buffs and thank him for his years of hard work and contributions to the Cardinal volleyball program. Although we're not quite sure that the Pac-10 is "the best conference" in Volleyball..especially considering the successes that Penn State has had in the Big 10...we're certain that Yelin will attempt to help the Buffs improve upon the 13-42 record they've complied in the past two years.

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Rick Pitino announced yesterday that three Cardinal men's basketball players would give up their scholarships and take the role of "walk-on" players to help the men's basketball team meet the requirements of only 13 scholarship players on a squad. Kyle Kuric, Chris Smith and Elijah Justice...all key contributors for the Cards last year...assume the new classifications.

It led us to start thinking about the situation with the women's basketball program at UofL. Jeff Walz has assembled a large and quality group of Lady Cards for the 2011-12 season. 15 players and 15 schollys available. We have to think, though...what if there hadn't been transfers out of the program this spring?



Would Shelby Harper been a candidate for walk-on status or a red shirt?



WE see it as Walz having several options. He could have followed Pitino's suit and ask a couple of the ladies to be walk-ons. He could have a couple of them take a red-shirt year.  We don't envision any more transfers out of the program this year....three of those have occurred already (Rachel Story, Polly Harrington and Nikki Burton).

An interesting situation ahead for the Lady Cards and a far cry from just a couple of seasons ago when Walz's team was vastly depleted in the ranks of healthy players and had to accept former player Brandie Radde's offer to come back onto the roster and delay Gwen Rucker's full-time status as a volleyball player for a year.

15 for 40. We like the ratio.  

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YELIN RETIRES...KORDES NEW VOLLEYBALL COACH

LEONID YELIN RETIRES AS UofL VOLLEYBALL
COACH...ANNE KORDES HIRED.


We had heard the news a couple of weeks back that changes could be in store for University of Louisville Volleyball. Today, it was announced that long time coach Leonid Yelin has retired as the head coach of the CARDS and St. Louis head coach Anne Kordes has accepted the job as Louisville's new skipper.
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If you're familiar with local volleyball in the Louisville area...the name Kordes is familiar to you. Anne's father, Ron, has coached on the high school and club level for several decades and is the coach at Assumption High School in Louisville. (Photo from slu.com)
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Anne played for her dad at the club and high school level before accepting a scholarship to Cincinnati. She was the Great Midwest Conference Newcomer of the Year in 1994 and was named second team All-Conference USA as a sophomore. She transferred to the University of Louisville after two years as a Bearcat.
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At Louisville, she led the Cards to the C-USA Tournament championship and NCAA Sweet Sixteen her senior year. She was also a three time C-USA All-Conference selection. After graduation, Anne began her coaching career in 1999 as an assistant at Indiana. A better opportunity quickly came along, though...and she accepted the top assistant job at Illinois. In six years at Illinois...they qualified for the NCAA Tournament three times and Sweet Sixteen twice.
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Anne accepted the head coaching job at St. Louis in 2004. In seven years there, her Billikens made three NCAA Tournament appearances, won four A-10 championships and she was selected A-10 Coach of the Year three times. Her teams has a combined league record of 59-1 over the last five years. Her lifetime record as a head coach is 146-75 (.661).
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The Louisville high school volleyball circuit is considered one of the most talented and competitive in the nation. Anne's experience with this area, the Kordes name recognition and her success and skill at developing young players will continue to create growth in the Cardinal Volleyball program for many years. Her work with youth national, select and high performance teams over the last ten years makes her an easily recognizable figure among the elite national high school programs also.
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Louisville has become a recognized power in Big East volleyball and has won the Big East Conference tournament three years in a row. They've come in second to Cincinnati in regular season play twice in a row. The 2010 Cards were a young team that improved greatly as the season progressed. Kordes will have stars Lola Arsanbeckova, Anastasia Artemeva, Emily Juhl, Taylor Brauneis, Gwen Rucker and Caitlin Welch among those in the returning class for 2011. Cardinal Arena is a great home advantage venue for Cardinal Volleyball and the 2012 NCAA Final Four Volleyball Championships will be held at the KFC YUM Center.
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Once again, Tom Jurich and Julie Hermann come through with a grand slam in a coaching hire. Or, in this case, should we say a game winning service ace...