CARDS WIN, CARDS LOSE -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

LOUISVILLE WOMEN'S SOCCER WINS AT MICHIGAN

As is our custom here at CARDINAL COUPLE, we try to bring you the joy and excitement of Louisville women's athletics. So, we'll start the Monday column with that..another win for Karen Ferguson Dayes' soccer program. UofL went to Ann Arbor, Michigan and came away with a 3-1 win. It was Louisville's fourth straight "W" to start the season. 

Maybe we should say Brooklynn 3 - Michigan 1.

Brooklynn (#13) gives it up for #14 Gabrielle Vincent

Brooklynn Rivers, a junior midfielder for the Cards scored all three goals against the Wolverines in Sunday afternoon action and went about it three different ways. 

She opened the Cards' scoring 6:49 into the match when she gained control of the ball from a Michigan player and  placed a shot into the bottom, right area of the goal past UM keeper Izzy Nino from about 15 yards out.  The UM squad was quick to respond, though, scoring just 15 seconds after UofL's tally to tie it at 1-1. 

Rivers wasn't done, though. Not by a long shot. Louisville earned a penalty corner shot at the 21:04 mark of the contest and Rivers stepped up and drilled one into the left lower corner of the goal to give the Cards back. And, that's the way the squads entered the half. Louisville holding the 2-1 edge after 45 minutes of action. 

It continued to be the Brooklynn show to start the final half. The Fort Thomas, KY native got loose after a Arianna Ferraro feed in the third minute of the second session and beat Nino again with found pay-dirt for the third time. Goal, Cards! 

Take off the hats and send them onto the turf.

The hat trick by Rivers is the first of the year for the Cards.  Why do they call it a hat trick? The term came about in the sport of cricket back in 1858 when an English player delivered three consecutive attempts that succeeded in taking wickets. The fans in attendance took up a collection and bought the player a new hat with the money. 

Coincidentally, the WSOC squad's last hat trick was on 8/26/18 when Gabrielle Vincent scored the triplicate against UAB. 

The Cardinal defense was stellar in the final 45 minutes, allowing just one shot on Cards keeper Gabby Kouzelos. 

Louisville returns home with a 4-0  record to prepare for the annual "Battle of the Bluegrass" against Kentucky at Lynn Stadium on Friday, August 31st. These two will meet at 5:30 p.m....the first of two that night on Floyd Street. Louisville men's soccer faces St. Louis (no, not the Cardinals...the Billikens) at roughly 7:30 p.m.  It's a "two-fer" Come on out! 

The Cards defeated UK in Lexington last year 3-1 on Sept. 1st. Emina Ekic scored twice against UK in that one and provided the assist to Alison Price for her goal. 

Our remaining question, I suppose, is just how many rivers flow through Brooklyn? If you know, let us know in the comments section.  

(Thanks to Jared Anderson for forwarding two of the pics above from Mark Vincent) 


FIELD HOCKEY FALLS TO OSU IN OVERTIME

It was a tale of two halves yesterday in Trager Stadium. 

The Cards controlled action and possession in the first 35 minutes and built a 2-0 led on the visiting Buckeyes. Goals from Mercedes Pastor and Erica Cooper gave Louisville that edge and it looked like the Cards were on their way to another win over a BIG 10 foe. 

Then, came the second half. 

The Buckeyes basically outworked the Cards and got an early second half score and one with less than three minutes left in regulation to tie the match. Going into the 10 minute, seven-on-seven extra session, the Columbus, Ohio school shocked Louisville with the game ending score just 89 seconds into the overtime. 3-2, The Ohio State University over UofL. 

Coach Justine Sowry's description of the afternoon will get no argument from me. Jared Anderson, one of three CARDINAL COUPLE representatives at the contest (along with me and Worldwide Jeff McAdams) caught the post-game recap and you can see the un-cut version at the link below: 

FIELD HOCKEY POSTGAME WITH JUSTINE SOWRY -- OHIO ST.

A true disappointment, no doubt, with the #24 ranked Buckeyes coming into Trager and knocking off the #8 Cards. Maybe a wake-up call, of sorts, early into the season for Louisville to not under-estimate any foe and play hard to the final horn. 


Coach Sowry was quite understandably disappointed and dismayed by the Cards second half performance and we were as well. This is a much better team than they presented in the final 37 minutes of action yesterday when they play as a unit. Louisville has the best goalkeeper in the world in Ayeshia McFerran and a defensive breakdown leading to three scores against her was shocking. 

Confidence remains high, though, that the Cards will work out the dilemma and be quite prepared and motivated for their next foe. 

(A special "Thank You!"! to our Jared Anderson for providing the FH pictures! ) 


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MS. "B" !!

At least the afternoon ended on a quite positive note when the Cardinal team and coaches gathered to celebrate Sherrill Brakmeier's 96th. birthday. Ms. "B", as she's affectionately called, played Field Hockey at UofL from 1941-44 and was the head coach of the squad for three decades. She was inducted to the Cardinal Hall of Fame in 1990.

The team presented her several gifts and a chocolate cake to honor her and she had a ear-to-ear smile with each presentation. As is custom, she has a seat of honor in the Louisville press box when she attends matches, and we did a bit of respectful and tribute scrambling to re-locate from those seats and make room for her and her daughter Sherill Zimmerman when they arrived shortly after the contest began.


Ms. B. embodies the spirit and long tradition of Louisville Field Hockey. I remember a short interview I did with her a few years back and her great memory of her coaching days. The money was tight back then...the administration would give her $50 for a road trip, that involved two carloads full of players and her and ask her to not spend it all on just one trip. 

The girls dined on hamburgers and soft drinks after away games and Ms. B would slice up oranges and put them in bags as a treat for the girls. 

Louisville Field Hockey hits the road for their next match, travelling to Richmond, VA for a test against U Mass Lowell on Saturday, Sept 1st. The Cards return home after playing at Delaware on Sept. 3rd. for four straight home games against North Carolina, California, Boston College and Northwestern.

You can catch the Cards for free anytime they play at Trager Stadium. Seven home contests remain. And, CARDINAL COUPLE will be a source for reporting action on Louisville Field Hockey home or away.  






paulie
xxxxx

Women's Soccer scrimmages Ohio State...THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

LOOK ON THE SCOREBOARD AND SEE...NEVERMIND.

Activity actually got underway for fall sports at UofL last night...the women's soccer team traveled to Columbus, OH to face the Buckeyes in an exhibition match. We're trying to piece information together about how it went in Ohio...not a lot out there. Exhibition games are just that...many times the stat crews and assistant SID's aren't keeping any official numbers or statistics. The scoreboard isn't on at times. Sometimes they are without public address announcers as well. The games don't go in the records. 

Ohio State had their scrimmage against Louisville on the Internet last night but I couldn't figure out how to download the platform from a viewing device named Stanza that they use. It seemed more interested in trying to get me to set up a calendar on-line and gather personal information than showing soccer...so I gave up on it after awhile and kept searching Twitter for updates. I'm pretty sure it would have cost me something to watch it...but I never got that far in the process. Allegedly, a lot of BIG10 schools use Stanza. I'm glad Louisville is in the ACC. 

There were only a couple of mentions on the Ohio State women's soccer Twitter account. They announced the game would be starting soon. They show the Ohio State players doing the O-H-I-O for the fans after the game. No scores, no highlights...no "so-and-so looked good or "so-and so didn't do this" quotes. 

There was also a quote from the OSU coach Lori Walker Hock after the game. 

"It was great to get out and play. We were able to see where our returners were and we had a lot of young players out on the field. It was a productive scrimmage and it was a benefit for us to get experience against a physical team." 

That as vanilla as it gets in post-event comments. What do we gather from that? That Louisville is physical...which is probably a good thing for the Cards...and coach knows where her returners are. I've seen similar quotes from coaches who've been drubbed by 30 points and from coaches who were up by 5 going into the second half.  

They posted a few pictures. Those are posted here.

I also checked the Louisville women's soccer Twitter feed to see if any mention was made on the scrimmage. 

Blank.

Articles about Saturday's double header, reasons why players chose Louisville and a motivational Monday hashtag but no recap, no score. In fairness, UofL may not have had a sports information person on hand for the contest. Those folks are really busy on campus right now. 

Searching by coach name, I checked the Karen Ferguson-Dayes twitter feed. Nothing there since late September 2016. I get it. It's an exhibition, Paulie. The team has been practicing less than a week (ridiculous...when you consider football and basketball get months and months of preparation for the season). How much can you read into the first scrimmage of the year? 

As you have probably deduced by now...I didn't make the trip to Columbus to watch the action. I have gone to WSOC away games in the past...but this one just wasn't in the wheel-well for me yesterday. And, once again, it was just a scrimmage after only a couple of days of practice. I expected maybe just a brief mention of a score, maybe who scored...but I tend to set my expectations way too high at times, I suppose. To paraphrase Allen Iverson...

"Scrimmage. Scrimmage? We talkin' 'bout scrimmage?"  

(From last year's Fall Sports Media Day) 

We'll find out more about women's soccer and other sports at the Women's Fall Sports media day Friday at Lynn Stadium. WSOC, Field Hockey and Volleyball coaches and players will be on hand for interviews. This is a fun event. After they feed the media, they're gathered into a room and the coaches talk about the programs and then the media given access to another room and allowed to talk to specifically picked players from each sport. We've gotten some great interviews out of this event since they started holding it a couple years ago. We've found out what shampoo Worldwide uses (one of the best questions ever by a player -- Molly Sauer -- directed to a media member... The answer was Pert Plus...). We found out where Maya McClendon prefers to eat (her parents house).  Based on last year...the Field Hockey girls are usually pretty serious, the WSOC girls open and humorous (thank Inger Katrine Bjerke for that...) and who knows what we'll get out of Volleyball this year? New coach and all...

We'll have those interviews on THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR Saturday morning at 11 a.m. They'll consist of our "Catching Up" sequence...normally we'd bring you a former UofL WBB player but we'll catch up with the fall sports instead. 

So...let's recap. We know that one UofL women's fall sports team (WSOC) has faced someone else. Louisville is an aggressive team. We also know that Jeff Walz has safely arrived in Tokyo with Asia Durr and the rest of the USA U23 squad and they went to practice shortly after the plane landed. We know that Field Hockey had their first practice yesterday and so did Volleyball. We even know the UofL women's golf schedule for the season. 

Things are happening. The doldrums of summer have passed. Fall sports have begun. We'll be here to tell you about what we see (or don't see). 

paulie
xxxxx

Saturday Cardinal Couple -- Louisville defeats Ohio State 1-0 in Friday scrimmage

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Saturday Cardinal Couple

- Women's soccer downs Buckeyes

We asked the question several times this week about how well the Louisville women's soccer team would handle the early season absence of last year's leading scorer Christine Exeter. Maybe we should have been asking how well the Cardinal defense would step up to neutralize the temporary loss. 

Charlyn Corral with the
only goal of the game

Louisville shut out Ohio State 1-0 Friday night at Cardinal Park. The defense stepping up big time to keep the Buckeyes out of the net and transfer Charlyn Corral scoring the lone goal of the exhibition for the Cardinal win on an assist from Angelika Uremovich.

Chloe Kiefer guarding the net with four saves in the shut-out. 

1-0 didn't have scoring enthusiasts jumping up and down in excitement...obviously, but it showed that the veteran Louisville defensive crew took this game "very personally" and wanted to show Cardinal fans early on the skill and abilities that they plan on exhibiting this fall. 


A win over a BIG TEN school. Yes, we'll accept that.

Shutting out a BIG TEN school. Have some. 

The objective is to outscore the opposition. 1-0 works.

Louisville plays again Sunday against Wright State. 

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USA Olympics Women's Basketball team goes for the gold today against France. Tip off scheduled for 4 p.m. on NBC. 

"Play me, Geno..."

A letdown for the Americans after defeating #2 in the world Australia? Don't count on it. 

Probably the last Olympic go-around for Bird, Taurasi, Catchings and Cash. A team looking to show that the half-time lead by the Aussies in Thursday's semi-final game was a combination of torrid Australia first-half shooting and lackadaisical USA defense. 

Australia scored 25 points in the second quarter. They scored 26 points in the second half. The old adage that offense wins fans but defense wins games never truer than the final 20 minutes of the USA effort against Jackson and Cambage. 30 first-half points for the twin towers, six in the second-half. 

We hope Geno gives Angel a more involved role today. The French aren't going to come in and roll over for USA. Not many expected to see them in the final. Let's send them back home with a 
silver. 
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