Cardinal Teams Split Friday Results — SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Field Hockey Remains Undefeated

Taking on Virginia in their second to last regular season ACC match, Louisville was looking for a win to remain undefeated and hold on to their number one seed. The Cards went into Charlottesville and handled their business, taking down the Cavaliers in the first of their two games by a final score of 5-2. By my math, that locks up the number one seed for the Cards, as the worst they could now finish in the conference is tied with North Carolina, a team they beat earlier this year and should hold the tie-breaker over. Coach Justine Sowry, of course, will be looking to keep her team’s momentum up and follow through with an undefeated regular season.

Louisville scored early and often in the match yesterday, putting up two goals in the first quarter with the opening goal coming from a Meche Pastor penalty stroke 8 minutes into the game. Louisville would go on to score in every quarter but the second. The Cards’ second goal also came against the run of play, as a penalty corner was converted by Aimee Plumb. It was officially assisted by Meche Pastor, putting her in a class near Emina Eric in terms of goals responsible for. Louisville would finish the game with 9 penalty corner attempts, but the second goal of the game was the Cards’ only conversion. We often talk about missed opportunities on corners, as it can be tough to score otherwise, but Louisville had no troubles yesterday despite the corner issues. 

After UVA clawed one back in the second quarter, the offenses died down briefly for the final ten minutes of the half. Louisville took a 2-1 lead into the half and had to be feeling confident. While confident about your chances at 2-1, you can hardly afford to sit  back and coast to the finish. Fortunately, that’s not what the Cards had in mind. Meche made sure Louisville stayed in control early by scoring just a minute and a half into the third quarter. This one came in live play with the ball being deflected off of a defender before finding the back of the cage.  The Hoos would manage to bring it back to a one score game just a few minutes later but Louisville still wasn’t done. With under a minute remaining in the third quarter, Madison Walsh took advantage of a mess in front of the Virginia goal and tucked the ball away with just 34 seconds remaining in the quarter.

The final quarter saw strong defensive play from the Cards as Virginia tried to get back into it. After ten minutes of no further scoring, Louisville put a bow on the match in the form of a Margot Lawn goal assisted by Embry Jane Imorde. The final goal put the Cards up by three with fewer than four minutes remaining and that was that. Louisville has just two games remaining on the regular season schedule before the ACC tournament gets underway and they’ll play one of those two today. As Jeff and I both mentioned on the show last week, it may not be the worst thing in the world for Louisville to take a close loss prior to the tournament in order to relieve some pressure. The best game to lose would seem to be today’s rematch against Virginia as it will not count as a conference game. Of course, if Louisville isn’t feeling the pressure of an undefeated season, they’re more than welcome to just keep winning. Today’s match is at 2PM and will be aired on the ACC Network Extra. 

Volleyball Loses Winning Streak at Pitt

Despite the struggles that Pitt volleyball has been facing this season, Louisville’s woes against the Panthers persisted in the Fitzgerald Field House last night. The Cards were ultimately swept in this one, but were out scored by a total of only 8 points. Louisville played pretty well, actually finishing with fewer errors than Pitt, but the offense just couldn’t find the gaps with their attack attempts. 

The Cards had 14 blocks compared to just 7 for Pitt and only allowed the Panthers to snag 7 aces to their own 3 while the two teams matched service errors at five. Unfortunately for Louisville, every Pitt advantage seemed to come at exactly the wrong time. While seemingly everyone in red got involved in the block party, the offense was quite spread out as well. Aiko Jones, Claire Chaussee, and Anna DeBeer  all finished with seven kills while Amaya Tillman added six and Anna Stevenson five more. Similarly, Pitt had an extremely balanced offense, and their hitters finished with more total attempts and kills. So it goes.

There isn’t a whole lot more to say about a match like this. Statistically, Louisville was right in it, and if you review just the numbers, it seems unlikely that they would lose in straight sets. But that’s what happened. 26-24, 25-21, and 25-23 shows just how close this match was. Louisville’s best chance at a comeback came in the third set when they managed to take a 19-18 lead, but they just couldn’t hold on. 

The final moves Louisville to 4-2 and Pitt to 4-3. To maintain a lead on the Panthers in the standings, Louisville will have to get revenge tomorrow in the final match of the fall season. Neither team can catch Notre Dame in pod play, but as the fall schedule will just carry over to the spring, the Cards will need to take advantage of their last chance to play one of their rivals, as they spring season will not see any of these teams matched up against one another again. The final match gets underway tomorrow at 3:30PM and should be available on the ACC Network Extra.

No Cardinal Couple Radio Hour This Week

Due to the Noon kickoff for Louisville football pulling Paulie away, Jared working his day away at the money management center, and Jeff and I finding our own messes to get into, we’ll be taking this week off at the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. We’ll have plenty more to get into when we’re back online next weekend so be sure to stay tuned to the site and to the podcast feed. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

More on Volleyball, Louisville FH update -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

More on Volleyball and Their Opponent

Can the Cards steal a couple
in Austin? 

Louisville Volleyball prepares for its fifth Sweet Sixteen appearance in program history, meaning we
will see a fifth black banner raised in L&N Federal Credit Union Arena next fall.

The Cards late regular season woes came following an injury to the lone senior in Melanie McHenry.  She has been and will remain out for the rest of the tournament so the Cards will look to continue their postseason success without her.  The good news?  Assuming we lose no one to the transfer portal we will see the exact same team next year and they will have some much needed tournament experience.

The Cards prepare to face Texas in the Sweet Sixteen on Friday at 4:00 p.m., ET.  If you're in attendance you'll be looking at 3:00 p.m., local time in Austin.

The last time Louisville faced Texas in the NCAA Tournament the team in Orange came out  on top 3-0.  The most recent meeting between the two was in October 2012, where the Cards fell at home 3-2.  The Cards are 0-3 all-time against Texas.

What about Texas?

Paulie gave you a brief rundown of the Longhorns yesterday, especially regarding their height.  They have nine players standing between 6'1 and 6'5.  The Cards do have eight players 6'1 or above, but seven of those eight stand no taller than the 6'2 mark.

Texas comes in as the 2-seed.  Baylor is the lone team seeded higher.  The Longhorns went 21-3 in the regular season.  Like the ACC, the Big 12 did not play a conference tournament.  The three losses came to now 3-seed Stanford (3-2), Rice (3-2), and now 1-seed Baylor (3-2).  All three losses came on the road and to NCAA Tournament teams.

The 21 wins feature plenty of high caliber teams.  They have wins over Baylor, Iowa State (2x), Texas A&M, Oklahoma (2x), BYU, and Minnesota.  They surrendered just seven sets in their 21 regular season wins.

In the NCAA Tournament, Texas defeated Albany 3-0 in the first round and had a tough fight against
UC Santa Barbara 3-2 in the second round.

Postseason is where the Longhorns thrive.  They have been to the NCAA Tournament 35 times where they are 97-33 all-time and have never lost in the opening round.  Texas has been to 31 Sweet Sixteens and have made that trip in 15 of the last 16 years, joining Penn State as the only two schools to accomplish that feat.

The Longhorns have two national championships in 1988 and 2012.  The 2012 championship happened down at the KFC Yum! Center where the Longhorns downed Oregon in straight sets.  The Oregon band in the semifinals and finals was none other than your Cardinal Pride Pep Band, hired by Oregon to save travel expenses.

We suspected such nonsense existed and we now have proof

Note: I am 0-2 in national championships in the band.  The 2012 volleyball championship and the 2013 women's basketball championship in New Orleans.

You may hear a familiar tune from the Texas band.  One of their fight songs, "The eyes of Texas", is played to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad".

"The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the livelong day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away."

Sounds a little stalkerish to me so I prefer my "Fight, UofL!" and "All Hail UofL!"

...for we are with you UofL!


Three All-Americans for Field Hockey


Meche Pastor, Alli Bitting and Carter Ayars received All-American status and I can't think of three more deserving than them for the prestigious honor.

Pastor and Bitting return for next season, Ayars has graduated. Louisville Field Hockey went 16-6 in 2019, a new record for wins in a season, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Field Hockey Tournament, before that heart-breaking loss to Boston College.

Meche, the wizard with the ball, from Buenos Aires was a first team selection. Alli was named to the second team and Carter the third team. They were three of the 48 named to the All-American list and it is the second year the Cards have had three on the All-American squad.

Justine Sowry on the players and the season:

"This was a historic year for our program, as we hosted a round of the NCAA Tournament and then advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time. The success was a culmination of the team's collective effort and to have Carter, Alli and Meche recognized for their roles they played in our achievements is absolutely amazing. I am so proud to have been part of this season."

And, it was an amazing season. The Cards return a ton of talent and should, once again, be a prime contender to challenge for the ACC title. The task for them, as well as the rest of the ACC Field Hockey DI contingent, is to find a way to beat UNC. The Heels are back-to-back NCAA Champions and haven't lost a match in two years.



Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

Field Hockey beats Mich St. -- Women's Golf tees it up today -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDS 4 - MICHIGAN STATE 1

A three-goal second half propelled #12 Louisville Field Hockey past Spartie yesterday in East Lansing. 

The Cards began the scoring very early in the match -- 35 seconds into action. Madison Walsh set up freshman Mattie Tabor and it was 1-0 before most people had a chance to sit down from the playing of the National Anthem. It would be the only Cardinal goal of the first two quarters, though....MSU countered about ten minutes later to tie it. 

Louisville was getting plenty of shots off in the first half (an 11-3) advantage, but...Spartan goalkeeper Jade Arundell was managing to keep the Cards at bay. 

The Cards came out fresh and confident after the half those and, once again, showed the quick strike capabilities with their second goal of the game just 3:35 into third quarter action. Margot Lawn recovered a missed attempt by Walsh and guided it back into the net. It was great to see "Lawn back on the pitch", after taking a deflected ball to the face in the Cards game against Kent State last Wednesday and having to leave the contest. 

The third quarter was quite the one-sided affair. Louisville held a 10-1 shot edge in those 15 minutes and found further success when they were awarded a penalty corner and Meche Pastor unleashed a rocket netward that was blocked but successfully rebounded by Carter Ayars and sent past the pipes. Ayars' second goal of the season made it 3-1 UofL with three minutes left in the third.

The Cards capped off the scoring with 15 seconds left in the game when Pastor sent a stroke soaring past the outstretched Arundell for the 4-1 final margin.

A huge 24-4 shots attempted margin favoring UofL. A 14-2 blowout with shots on goal by the Cards. Give MSU goalkeep Arundell credit, this could have been a lot worse for the Big 10 school...she had 10 saves.

Back between the pipes for Louisville, Hollyn Barr got the start and played all 60 minutes. Not much action for the red-shirt junior...just two shots on goal in 60 minutes. Sam Minrath did not see playing time guarding the net in this one...for those of you following the "tale of two goalies" scenario on the squad. 

A quick turn-around awaits our "flock"...they take the field again this morning at 11 a.m. against UC Davis in East Lansing. These California Aggies have been in East Lansing since Wednesday and played twice...losing to MSU 2-1 and beating Ball State 2-1. 

No TV for this one but you can follow along at Sidearm stats for updates or follow Field Hockey on Twitter at @ulfieldhockey 


WOMEN'S GOLF OPENS IN MINNESOTA

The Lauren Hartlage reign of terror begins with UofL women's golf in Minnesota for a two-day event at Prestwick Golf Club in Woodbury Minnesota.

The event is the Minnesota Invitational and the Cards will face 13 other teams, including intra-state rival UK, plus, Miami (FL), and Virginia Tech from the ACC. 

Starting five-some for the Cards is Hartlage, Mairead Martin, Hana Ryskova, Margot Bechadergue and Delaney Shah. Playing as an individual (and, don't we all at times?) is Lauren Thibodeau. Ryskova is a freshman from the Czech Republic. 

36 holes today and 18 tomorrow for the Cards chip-and-putt crew. It's the affable Whitney Wade Young' first outing as the Cards head coach. 

You can follow the action at golfstat.com

Have a marvelous Monday! 




paulie
xxxxx

Lacrosse Releases Schedule -- Field Hockey News -- Preview of Cats -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

LACROSSE SCHEDULE FOR 2019

Year two of "Teeter's Term" begins on Feb 8th. Officially, that is, with a game in Evanston against Northwestern. Long before that, Coach Scott, Kay Morrissette, Renee Poullett and the squad will be practicing, preparing and planning for the season and, from the eyeball test, it looks to be a challenging and exciting schedule. Who will be some of the players to get to know?


Only one senior on the Lacrosse roster, and she's a great one in Tessa Chad. In her first year donned in the Red and Black, she was second leading scorer on the squad with 42 goals. She played in all 17 Louisville Lacrosse matches. Before the Cards, she was with Teeter at Canisius and earned quite a few MAAC honors in two year as a Golden Griffin. 

The Blaylock sisters return for their sophomore year. Midfielder Caroline made second team ALL-ACC last season and led Louisville in scoring with 45 goals. Sister Sarah is also a midfielder and had eight scores in the 17 games. Lexie Ball is back to compete for the starting goalkeeper role and her backup Jen Schaaf is back as well. 

Freshman Shay Clevenger is a name you might want to get to know. She was ranked #32 in the Inside Lacrosse Top 49 Young Gun Seniors for the 2018 season. The defender played at Marriots Ridge high school, where the Blaylock sisters played. 

A roster of 24 student-athletes that includes 11 sophomores and nine freshmen. Geographical breakdown of the roster shows nine players from Maryland, four from New York, three from Canada, two each from North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia and one apiece from Kentucky and Florida.  

After the opener against Northwestern in Evanston, the Cards travel to play Marquette on Feb 10th. and then at Denver on Feb.,16th. 

They'll take the pitch for the home opener on Feb.24th against Mercer. Vandy stops by next on Feb 27th. to close out February action. 

March finds the Cards in South Bend to face the Irish of Notre Dame on the 2nd. They'll find out if the Butler did it on March 6th up in Naptown and return home for action against Duke on March 6th. A trip to Pittsburgh will bring a match against Duquesne on the 11th. Back home, the Cards will invite Cincinnati in on the 13th., and Syracuse on the 17th. 


A few days with action before they travel to Blacksburg to go gobbler hunting at Virginia Tech on the 23rd. Then, it's back to the Ville for three in a row to close the home part of the schedule...Delaware on the 31st., North Carolina on April 7th., and Ohio State  on the 9th. 

Louisville concludes the regular season travelling. They'll visit Virginia on April 13th. and Boston College on the 19th. The ACC Lacrosse Tournament is in Boston this year and that begins on April 24th. 

A challenging 2019? You bet. Seven of the Cards foes participated in the NCAA Tournament last year. The Cards went 5-1 early in the 2018 schedule before losing 10 out of the last 11 to finish 6-11. This year's squad should have better luck of it, it's easy to see at least equaling last year's wins and maybe even getting a few more to hit double figure wins and achieve Teeter's first ACC victory. 

We'll cover and report on all the LAX efforts here at the Couple. Go Cards! 



FIELD HOCKEY HONORS

Congratulations to three of Justine Sowry's "stick girls", who received NFHCA DI All-American honors! 

Senior Ayeshia McFerran took first-team accolades, the goalkeeper extraordinaire became the first Cardinal in history to be named to the All-American team for all four of her four years at UofL. The best goalkeeper in the world was named to the third team as a freshman and first team her sophomore and junior years. Her accolades at Louisville would take me a full hour to list here...she is the best to ever step on the Trager Stadium turf and will have a long and successful career playing for the Irish National team now. 

Sophomore Mercedes "Meche" Pastor was honored with second team status. She showed her magician-like skills with the stick and ball for the Cards this season and added this award to her All-West Region and ACC first team selections. At 5'1", the Buenos Aires native meets the qualifications for our "Attack Yorkie" status and we look forward to the next two years of seeing her baffle, confuse and score on the competition. The "pastor" is in the pulpit again! All rise and rejoice! 

Senior Taylor Stone caps off a very successful student-athlete time here at the Ville with third-team honors. This is the second time she's made All-American status and the Herndon, VA native was also named to the All-West and ACC squads this year. She's also a part of the USA Field Hockey National Development squad. 

We wish all three the best of luck as they continue their skills on the field for Louisville and beyond in 2019! 



CAT COMMENTARY

Since I'll be out of the CARDINAL COUPLE writing rotation until Monday, I thought I'd provide a few thoughts and observations on the upcoming UofL vs. UK women's basketball game this Sunday at the KFC YUM! Center.  

Rest assured that Jared, Case and Jeff will provide much more in the next three days about the annual "Battle of the Bluegrass". Be sure to check back here for their columns. The Sunday contest should be all that's advertised. It is a "red out" so dress accordingly! 



CATS GUARDS WILL BE A CHALLENGE

Maci Morris and Taylor Murray run the show out front for Matthew Mitchell's squad and they've been quite successful in helping UK go 8-0 so far. Morris poured in 31 points last time out for UK in a 87-57 win over Morehead. Point guard Murray leads the squad in assists and has 13 against the Eagles. She's showing a brand new confidence out front and has picked up her aggressiveness this season. Backups Blair Green and Jaida Roper are quite capable of providing quality backup minutes. We'll cover another guard below. 

FRESHMAN FIREPOWER

Rhyne Howard has come in and found instant success. The freshman, who played under Walz on the FIBA Americas squad, leads UK in scoring with 18.1 p.p.g. She's listed at 6'2" and classified as a guard. She also leads UK in three-pointers made (23-45) for 51% and has the highest rebounds per game average at 6.9 a night. 

CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARDS

Keke McKinney , a 6'1" sophomore and Tatyana Wyatt, a 6'2" sophomore are the other two probable starters for UK and prowl the paint. They combine for 8.3 p.p.g. a night and 8.5  grabs a contest. They could be the "weak links" in the UK configuration and an area where the Cards try to capitalize. 

Sam, Kylee and Bionca should prosper. 


WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? 

The Cats are 8-0 and their wins have come against Alabama St., Southern, Virginia, High Point and Morehead at home. They won the Paradise Jam Tournament with wins over South Florida, UCLA and UNC. A two-point squeaker against the Bruins. Every thing else has been by 10 points or more. They downed the ACC Cavs by 12 and the Tar Heels by 10.

They are ranked #19 by the AP. This will be their first top 25 test of the season. 

We'll have much more on the match-up in the following days.  If you want a sneak peek of UK, you can catch them tonight against Rhode Island in Lexington on the SEC Network tonight at 7 p.m.

(The weekly Paulie Podcast is up and you can hear him ramble at the following link):

Paulie Podcast for 12/6/18 
paulie
xxxxx




                                                         ##############

Trio of Cardinal wins on Sunday -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FIELD HOCKEY DOWNS CALIFORNIA IN OVERTIME 2-1


Starting off the Louisville women's sports double-header on Sunday, the #11 Field Hockey squad got an overtime goal from standout sophomore Mercedes "Meche" Pastor to knock off un-ranked California 2-1 at Trager Field.  

A contest where defense was the priority for most of the contest. The visiting Golden Bears struck first with just 4:36 left in the first half due to a Cardinal miscue and jailbreak type attack that caught Louisville's defense a bit unaware. The Cards were taking a penalty corner...but the insert of the ball skipped past the Cardinal attack formation and rolled to midfield. The Bears had the numbers and rapidly advanced the ball to the net, where they got and unassisted goal. 1-0 at the half. 

Louisville head coach Justine Sowry outlined to The Flock at halftime what she wanted to see out of them in the second half and the theme was "playing to your strengths". That came to fruition at the 54:36 mark when junior Whena Munn (pronounced "Thena") took a pass from Pastor and the New Zealand native fired from in front of the California cage to find net. Louisville and Cal would both have opportunities to win this one in regulation...but the defenses held and it was still 1-1 at the end of regulation. 


The sudden death scenario in Field Hockey consists of lowering the on-field -participants to just seven players per side. They then go to work and first score wins. 

Louisville received a penalty corner opportunity four and one half minutes into the extra session and Pastor, who hails from Buenos Aires, Argentina, rifled a shot past Cal goal-keeper Danielle Mentink for the game-ender. 

The Cards go to 4-2 on the season and are 1-1 now in extra-time hockey. They bring in Boston College Friday night to Trager Stadium next.


We caught up with Coach Sowry and Meche Pastor after the contest and got their reactions. For some reason, the UofL link to post game Sowry video takes you to her discussing the loss to UNC Friday...so we didn't include it here. Interns running amuck in the post-game processing, I suppose. The audio I did is below: 


LINK: COACH SOWRY POST GAME

I've included both interviews with Pastor here...the UofL video of it, which was a bit abridged and my full uncut audio interview: 

LINK: POST GAME MECHE PASTOR VIDEO INTERVIEW

LINK: MECHE PASTOR POST GAME AUDIO


WSOC RUNS PAST EKU 5-1

Moving to Sunday evening, Louisville women's soccer scored early and often in a dominating 5-1 win over the visiting Colonels from Richmond. 

Four different scorers for the Cards in the victory. Brooklynn Rivers got the onslaught started when she took a pass from Arianna Ferraro in front of the goal 17 minutes into action and booted it in for the first score of the contest. The Kickin' Cards added to the total six minutes later when Mollie Rouse took a cross from Emina Ekic in front of the EKU keeper and sent it into the net to make it 2-0 UofL.

Delaney Snyder picked up her third goal of the season when she followed up on a rebound and drove it into the back of the net just two minutes before the end of the first half. The teams took to the locker rooms with Louisville comfortably ahead 3-0.

Louisville was not done with the fireworks, however and San Diego freshman Maisie Whitsett took over. She found success just two minutes into the second session, taking a nice feed from fellow freshman Anna Henderson (Kirkland, WA) and drove it past the EKU keeper Zoe Aguirre into the net to make it 4-0 University of Louisville. 

Eastern Kentucky got their lone goal when they took a dribble and Idalys Rea pushed one past Gabby Kouzelos to draw them within three at 4-1...six minutes into the final half. 

Just two minutes after that, it was Whitsett time again. The Cards got a rebound in front of the net and Brooklynn Rivers got the ball to Whitsett who tapped it in for the final score of the night. 

Louisville went deep into the roster as time continued in the second half. Eight reserves saw action, including junior Sarah Feola, back from injury and appearing for the first time this season on the field. The Quebec, Canada midfielders entrance and exit after 25 minutes was met with enthusiastic response from the Cardinal players. 

Domination in the stats for the Cards in this one. They took a total of 21 shots, 13 on goal, compared to just four for EKU....three of those on goal. 

The #24 Cards go to 6-1 for the season on a cloudy, foggy and drizzly night for soccer. Next up,  a road trip to Pittsburgh to open ACC play against the Panthers on Saturday night. 

We were able to get comments and remarks from Louisville head coach Karen Ferguson Dayes back in the soccer complex interview room after the impressive Louisville win...plus Maisie's first interview ever post-game as a Cardinal. She handled it quite well...as you'll hear. Once again, I'm including the UofL official video of these and my audio. 

JARED ANDERSON VIDEO OF COACH KAREN FERGISON DAYES POST GAME EKU

KAREN FERGUSON DAYES POST GAME EKU VIDEO

PAULIE AUDIO OF KAREN FERGUSON DAYES POST GAME EKU COMMENTS

MAISIE WHITSETT POST GAME REMARKS AFTER EKU GAME

PAULIE AUDIO FROM MAISIE WHITSETT INTERVIEW AFTER EKU GAME



MEN'S SOCCER UPSETS DUKE 3-0


While Field Hockey was toiling against Cal on the middle section of Floyd Street, Louisville men's soccer was engaged in battle with #2 Duke on the southern part of Floyd Street in Lynn Stadium. The men's squad found the flow in the second half with three goals and upset the Blue Devils 3-0 on Sunday afternoon. 

Scores from three different Cardinals gave Louisville this win. We'll let head men's soccer coach Ken Lolla describe the victory for you in the UofL post game video link: 

KEN LOLLA POST-GAME DUKE

( A special "Good Job!" to JARED ANDERSON, who took photos at all three events today after a long night of covering Cardinal Football Saturday night! We feature his photos today).

paulie
xxxxx