ULRICH COMPLETES THE SWEEP -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE  (finally...)

HEY THERE, HI THERE  AND.. what a crazy Sunday it has been  Storms swept theough the Louisville area and knocked out ol' Paulie's power and internet until this afternoon.  And, no one here could pck me up on the article. I have my own thoughts about that, but I will hold them, Let's look instead, at the continuing journey of Jayden Ulrich. 

The Cards throws specialist won the EAST regional shot put first, to advance to the NCAA Finals. I hope you read the article here detailing that. Then, yesterday, she came in second in the discus up in Lexington, with a hurl of 62.95 m ...or 206-6 feet. Once again, a qualifying throw for her to get her in the NCAA Finals. 

( "E" could do a little tossin, as well...)

The Cards have had a long history of excellent throwers in field events...just off the top of my head I can recall  Emmonnie Henderson,  Radisha Harris, Chinwe Okoro, Khadija Abdullah and d'Ana Mccarty,  just to name a few. But, Ulrich may jut be the best of them all. 

Jere Summers was a favorrite of mine, a few years back and I loved to watch when she threw the discus. She was second all time at UofL in throwing discus distance at UofL but Ulrich's throw beat her best ever by 5 meters! That's almost 17 feet...

Ulrich spent her first two years of college throwing at Indiana University And, was 17th in the NCAA shotput in 2022 and 18th last year at the NCAA Finals for the Hoosiers.  But, this year, she has sprung to like and is throwng so much better as a Cardinals field participant. One consistant is her throws coach. Cory Martin came down to take the assistant throwing coaching duties over this season at UofL, and brought Ulrich with him. 

The Cards have three other women also headed to Oregon for field events.. Soledad Jean in the high jump. Alba Cuns Iglessias in the triple jump and Natalie Lark in the pole vault. 

We wish all our Cardinals field event student athletes the best of luck in Oregon !! 

paulie

Triantafyllou Gets ACC Freshman of the week honors -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

TRIANTAFYLLOU NAMED ACC FRESHMAN OF THE WEEK

First off, Happy May Day to you! If you'e not familiar with the state (it's actually a commonwealth, by the way)...May is pretty big here in Kentucky, they run the Kentucky Derby, of course, on the first Saturday in May and, this year,  the PGA Golf Championships will be held at Valhalla (on the outskirts of Louisville) later this month.

Louisville women's track and field has had their share of excellent  track and field athletes  over the years.  ILLIANA TRIANTAFYLLOU is a freshman pole vaulter that is among those. 

She was named the ACC Freshman of the Week  after her huge performance in the Clark Wood Invitational women's pole vault...clearing 4.18m (13-8.5), which tied the best jump in Cardinals women's history for a freshman, previously held by Gabriela Leon back in 2018. You remember Leon, don't you? She won the NCAA Pole Vault back in 2022. with a still all-time Uofl best of 4.75m. (14ft.7.5 inches) 

Illiana hails from Serres, Greece and her jump is the sixth best in the ACC this season. Triantfyllou joined the Cards in January and had finished second in the Greek National Champunship pole vaulting events back in 2023.

She also won tthe 2022 Greek U18 Championships. 

Pole Vaulting is one of those track and field events that never cease to amaze me, given the precise timing, positionong, technique and style needed to be good at it. I admired the athletes I participated in track and field with in hgh school that were proficient at the pole vault and I even tried to see if I could be a "vaulter" but never could get over the bar...and they set it prettty low for guys that were in tryouts  As the coaches finally told me, "You run around the track once and twice pretty good, stick with that"

I enjoyed trying the long jump and triple jump, but never could match what the best on the team were doing. One of my grade school buddies went onto do some great things in the pole vault in high school. 

In the Clark Wood, Louisville Track and Field also got a 4.18m vault out of Natalie Lark . It would appear the Cards have a fine arsenal of long jumpers to help them compete and possibly win a lot of those events in the next few years. 

The ACC Championshiips will occur May 9-11 in Atlanta, GA...A full scheule of events are  available for viewing on the ACCNX and a schedule can be found at: https://theacc.com/feature/outdoor-track-field-championships . 

paulie