Field Hockey wins on Senior Day -- Loretta Kakala transferring -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

BETHANY RUSS GOAL IN O.T. SENDS CARDS PAST MIAMI

In cool and damp conditions and for the second straight contest, the Louisville Field Hockey squad found themselves faced with overtime in their Sunday contest at Trager against Miami (OH). This match had been a scoreless affair, much like the Friday tilt with Duke, until the RedHawks capitalized on a penalty corner with no time left in the first half. 

Louisville drew even with about eight minutes gone in the final half. Meche Pastor sent a baseline shot net-ward that Madison Walsh corralled and put past the RedHawks goalkeeper. For Madison, it was her first score of the season. 

Miami was relentless on the attack, though, and with about 12 minutes of action remaining, drew a couple of penalty corners. The RedHawks found success on the second corner and Leonor Berlie got her second score of the contest to put Miami in the lead. 

As the end of regulation drew near, a succession of green and yellow penalty cards (four in all) started stacking up on the RedHawks and the ultimate came when Miami head coach Inako Puzo received a red card for comments and was ejected from the contest with 32 seconds remaining in regulation. Just a few seconds earlier, the Cards had earned a penalty corner and Bethany Russ got her first score of the contest to tie action at 2-2.

Miami nearly won it at the end of regulation when their leading scorer on the season -- Paula Portugal -- found herself in front of Cardinal goalkeeper Ayeshia McFerran with the ball. Her shot sailed high over the net, though -- the Cards had escaped the last ditch effort by the RedHawks and this bird battle was headed to overtime. 

With the 7v7 format in overtime in place, Miami (OH) actually had just six players on the turf because of the late yellow card on attacker Noor Breedijk and Louisville used the player-up advantage to control action, ultimately getting a penalty corner chance just a minute-thirty into extra action, where Russ delivered again, her ninth goal of the season...this time on a pass from Alli Bitting to end the sudden-victory session. 

More on Puzo...you could hear the Miami skipper's comments and complaints up in the press box and his continuous dissatisfaction and belittling of the officiating crew caught up with him. It's the first time I can remember a coach getting ejected from a field hockey contest that I've seen. He watched the remaining action through the fence on the McDonald's side of Trager. I did see him after the contest back on the field surrounded by his wife and children -- an unfortunate loss of control and decorum by him...earlier...which, although may have not cost the RedHawks the contest -- his assistants seemed in control of the situation out of the field -- but his unfortunate actions certainly didn't help the RedHawks chances. 

Louisville hits the highway for their final three games of the regular season. The Cards will visit ACC foe Syracuse on Oct 21st, swing over to Albany on the 23rd and end up at Kent State on Oct. 28th. 

Paulie caught up with Coach Sowry and the four seniors...Ayeshia McFerran, Maria Gomez, Taylor Stone and Katie Walsh...after the contest and you can hear those interviews below: 

MIAMI POST GAME JUSTINE SOWRY

SENIORS AFTER 3-2 WIN OVER MIAMI


LORETTA KAKALA LEAVING LOUISVILLE WBB SQUAD


The tweets started surfacing Sunday and my voice mail, inbox and texts started piling up in an rapid fashion. 

Redshirt freshman Loretta Kakala had made public via her Instagram account and Twitter feeds indicated that she was transferring from the University of Louisville women's basketball squad. Heading to Pacific (CA) University. 

And the question came up.....why? 

I guess we'll never really know. Indications seemed to lead to the stated desire to play closer to home and get a fresh start with the possibility of more playing time at school very close -- fifteen minutes -- to her home town of Manteca, CA.

Speculation developed after the Cards 2017-18 season what role she would play on the 2018-19 Cardinal WBB squad. Most figured she'd contribute a few minutes on the front line, with returnees Sam Fuehring, Kylee Shook and Bionca Dunham getting the majority of the minutes at power forward and center and incoming transfer Yacine Diop from Pitt definitely contributing there. 

Reports from a source near the program indicated that her conditioning wasn't exactly going as planned but these reports were not confirmed by me and the announcement of her transfer on Sunday caught many Cardinal WBB fans by surprise. The bottom line is, as it is in most transfer situations, is that you want to do the right thing for the player and their student-athlete experience and if it's determined that the player might be more comfortable and receive more playing time elsewhere...then they should go pursue those desires and goals. 

Hello there! 

A check of the UofL roster at the GoCards site still had Kakala listed, but sometimes it takes a bit to change this information, especially when the announcement is made on a Sunday. And, sports information rarely posts or discusses transfers out, which is understandable. 

The 6'2" center played in four games in 2017 for the Cards...a total of 43 minutes (10.8 a game average). She totaled 12 points on 6 for 16 shooting and had 12 rebounds. She red-shirted after the fourth contest. 

Pacific has a D-I women's basketball program and competes in the West Coast Conference. 10 conference members...maybe best known for Gonzaga, BYU and Pepperdine. The Tigers were 15-17 last season with a 7-11 conference mark and finished sixth in the conference. 


So, "Retta"...we barely got to know you and wonder what might have become of your career at UofL but...as women's college basketball fans...certainly wish you good times, a great career and the best of luck at Pacific. 

Transfers in. Transfers out. All an increasing part of the college basketball games these days. The bottom line analysis is that any college basketball roster is going to change throughout the year and those changes, whether they be injury, red-shirt or transfer...have to be dealt with in terms of what is best for the student-athlete and the team must move forward. 


paulie
xxxxx

Another Split Friday -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Field Hockey Takes Top-10 Match-up

After a tough weekend last week with a hard loss to North Carolina and a narrow overtime win over Cal, UofL field hockey bounced back with a 1-0 win over Number 9 Boston College. It was a closely contested match, as you might expect between teams just one ranking apart in a sport so compact as field hockey. As we've mentioned many times before, nearly the entire ACC is ranked in the top 25 and the rankings for field hockey are quite good. Where teams are ranked is almost always a great indicator of their quality and there are not many major upsets. This might be best shown by Louisville's lack of movement in the rankings following a loss to a highly ranked North Carolina and a win over unranked Cal.

Last night's match was as close as one can be and still be decided in regulation. The Cards and Eagles went the full 70 minutes without scoring and it was an untimed penalty corner that was the deciding factor. Bethany Russ scored on the shot assisted by Maria Gomez and Katie Walsh. It was Russ's second goal and the Cards second untimed game-winner of the season. It was Louisville's fifth corner of the match, giving them a less than desirable corner percentage, but 20% is better than the 0-9 that Boston College converted.

Besides the corner disparity, the match was very close statistically. Boston College played only one less player than the Cards and both teams finished with 11 shots. Louisville had better chances, putting 8 of their 11 on goal. Boston College was only able to put 5 shots on goal, all of which Ayeisha McFerran saved. Neither team committed a foul, leading to an exciting and clean game. 

Despite the lack of finishing, this offensive outburst was a bit better for Louisville than the past couple of games. Eleven shots is higher than Louisville has been able to compile recently and 8/11 shots on goal is a strong indicator of good passing and chance creation. Boston College was still able to get chances of their own, but the Louisville defense was up to the task. The next step for Louisville will be get back to converting more of their chances into actual goals. The Cards have not been shut-out this season, but they have also not scored more than two goals in any game. With three losses so far, it is clear that the defense is not quite as stout as it has been in years past. Louisville may have a few more games this year where the opponent scores two or more goals, and the Cards' offense will need to be able to respond. 

Louisville is back in action tomorrow at noon against Northwestern. If you've kept up with the site or with the field hockey team at all, you'll know what a bugaboo the Wildcats are to the Cardinals. Louisville will be looking to pull the all-time series closer to level. NU currently leads the series 7-3 and took the last match almost exactly a year ago 2-0. A strong performance on Sunday could give the Cards their second perfect weekend of the season, the only other so far coming against UMass-Lowell and Delaware. Tune in to ACC Network Extra or head out to Trager for what should be an exciting matchup on a nice day. Our after-game links below:

Coach Sowry Post-Game

BETHANY RUSS POST-GAME

Ayeshia McFerran post-game

Volleyball Thrashed by Kentucky: 3-0

It was a night to forget for Dani Busboom Kelly's squad as Kentucky took a sweep off of the Cards in Cardinal Arena and took the lead in the 2018-19 Battle for the Bluegrass. Louisville's largest lead of the night was at 7-4 in the first set, and they held a 4-3 lead in the second. Both times, Kentucky took extended runs to put the sets a bit too far out of reach for the Cards. In the third, Louisville looked absolutely helpless, falling behind 9-2 with their only two points coming from Kentucky service errors. I tuned into the match just in time to see a challenge go against the Cards for the first point of the third set and it was all downhill from there.

Louisville's wounds were mostly self inflicted in this one, as the Cards racked up 21 errors over three sets. Their final hitting percentage was just 0.080. The Cards committed at least as many errors in each set as Kentucky committed on the whole night (6). That's most definitely not a winning formula. To make matters worse for a woefully hitting Louisville team, Kentucky was swinging lights out. The Cats were led by Leah Edmond, who finished with 14 kills and hit .600. Alli Stumler and Brooke Morgan had 8 and 7 kills, respectively, and neither committed an error. Louisville couldn't hit, and they had no answer defensively for Kentucky. Again, not a winning formula. 

Louisville was led in kills by Melanie McHenry with 8, but she also led the team in attack errors with 7. Jasmine Bennett was the biggest threat on offense, finishing with 7 kills and .308 hitting, but even she had three errors. The cleanest hitter for the Cards was Piper Roe, who finished with 4 kills on 6 attempts with no errors. It was a rough night for Wilma Rivera, who finished with 3 digs, a service error, and was 0/3 with three errors in attack. She did finish with 24 of the team's 25 assists, but the Cards were outscored by 30 points on the night so the shine comes off a bit. 

As I said from the jump, this was a night to forget. Kentucky looked good. They certainly did not look like the team that we've rattled off as having a bunch of losses so far this year. Even at 4-4 on the year, the Cats were ranked in the top 20 coming into last night. They showed last night why they were a top 5 team in the preseason. Coming into a hostile environment and absolutely dismantling the hosts was tough to watch as a Louisville fan. Quite frankly, I hope the Cards don't have to play Kentucky again this season. That said, Louisville looked bad. They were caught out of system numerous times, the attacking errors were inexcusable, and the defense was sorely lacking. 

There will not be much to glean from film of this match, so it will be important for Louisville to move past this match mentally before they go into a conference season where they have a legitimate chance to make some noise. Sometimes the ball doesn't go your way. It's important for the Cards to not let one bad performance snowball into a season killing skid. Louisville takes on Chattanooga today at three with a chance to get the sour taste out of their mouths. The match will be on ACC Network Extra, or you can head down to Cardinal Arena to see the Cards bounce back yourselves. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We're back on the air this morning bringing you the joy and excitement of Louisville women's sports. Even after tough losses, there is always something positive to find and we'll be sure to find it and deliver on today's Cardinal Couple Radio Hour.

No Jared this morning, so we'll be without his insight, but Mike Gilpatrick of River City Cards joins us and we'll bring you coverage from the all of the contests over the last week and previews of those upcoming. Tune in to WCHQ FM at 100.9, wchqfm.com, the WCHQ App, or on Facebook Live at 11 AM and sit a spell with us

We'll be happy to have you.

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Pictures for today's article once again come from our own Jared Anderson. As always, check out his full portfolio at jdaphotos.com