Volleyball Sweeps; FH Continues ACC Slump -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Makes Quick Work of BC

The Cards went on the road to Boston College yesterday afternoon and, though the win hasn't been officially recorded on Louisville's or the ACC's websites, moved to 5-0 in the ACC. Louisville sits tied with Pitt atop the league, though the Panthers have the much tougher Sunday opponent in Georgia Tech. While Louisville's next matchup is also 4-1 in ACC play, Syracuse is just 8-7 on the season. The Orange have played just one team with a winning conference record, and their loss last night gave Notre Dame its first conference win of the season.

All that aside, Louisville still has to take care of business in every match. For the time being, they are still doing so without the services of Anna DeBeer. So far, they've been mostly unbothered from a results perspective, and that continued last night. Claire Chaussee once again earned the lion's share of the attack attempts, taking 28 of the team's 86 swings. She converted 14 of those and committed just three errors for a hitting percentage of 0.393. Pretty nice for a pin hitter. Amaya Tillman was right behind her with 19 attempts, and she was the only other Cardinal to post double digit kills with 11. With no errors, that was a clean 0.579 percentage. Leading the way in that category was PK (Phekran Kong), who put up an 0.857 on 6/7 hitting.

The blocking numbers in this one are all out of whack, as the statbroadcast format shows only total blocks. Louisville finished with 12 as a team, but I can't break down the solo blocks from the assists. I can tell you that in addition to her solid hitting night, Amaya Tillman contributed to eight blocks. I can also tell you that five Cardinals contributed to more than one block and seven Cardinals contributed overall. In fact, more players earned at least an assisted block than earned a kill. Sydni Schetnan was the one that put her name on the sheet in the blocking column but not the kills column. It might also be nice of me to mention that Louisville did all of this blocking in the first two sets.

Boston College was largely overmatched, as Louisville won the match 25-15, 25-20, 25-13. The Cards hit 0.430 as a team, committing just seven total errors, and BC hit 0.099 with 23 errors. It was a night to forget from the service line, as Louisville had just one ace and five errors, but the Cards made up for it elsewhere in the match. Raquel Lazaro seems to be back to 100%, as she assisted on 34 of Louisville's 42 kills and added six digs and three block contributions. That didn't stop someone else from getting the assist on match point, though, as Paige Morningstar served for match point and assisted Chaussee's 14th kill to give the Cards the win.

Louisville is back in action tomorrow at 1PM on ACC Network Extra. The Cards are at Syracuse tomorrow before returning home next weekend to take on Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. The Cards will twice get Pitt and Notre Dame in back-to-back matches with travel in between, but those are problems for a later date. Tune in to ACCNX tomorrow to see the Cards in quality more befitting of a college team than a rec league (looking at you BC).

Field Hockey Falls at Wake Forest

Louisville's woes in ACC play continue as the Cards are now 0-3 in conference after falling to the Demon Deacons 2-0 yesterday evening. Through the first half of the conference season, only Louisville and Duke are winless, though even the 4-8 Blue Devils are ahead of the Cards for the time being as they're just 0-2. Louisville's offense was lackluster again, as the Cards were outshot by Wake, and the team's usual second half passion was nowhere to be found.

Louisville opened the match with some fire, as an early penalty corner forced a save by Sasha Elliott. The Cards wouldn't give up another offensive opportunity for the remainder of the quarter, as they used two penalty corners to force three saves and later had another shot blocked. Unfortunately, four shots and no goals through one quarter doesn't get you anything, so the teams moved on to the second. Louisville once more came out hot with a penalty corner just 34 seconds into the quarter, but the ensuing shot was blocked. 

Wake had had about enough of that by that point, and the remainder of the second quarter belonged to their offense. The Deacs put together four shots, with only one coming from a penalty corner, and held the ball for the rest of the half. Louisville was up to the challenge, as Elliott snagged three saves and the fourth shot was blocked, but Wake had smelled the blood in the water. The two teams went into the half with the same number of shots and Wake holding a one shot advantage in shots on goal. 

Out of the half, Louisville earned the first shot, but Mattie Tabor's effort was wide of the mark. The next possession gave Wake a shot of their own, forcing another Elliott save. A few minutes later, the Demon Deacons earned another penalty corner and forced another save. Undeterred, Wake's offense continued applying the pressure and earned a penalty stroke. On the shot, Sky Caron earned her fifth goal of the season and Louisville trailed 1-0. The Cards would get another shot just before the quarter ended, with Katie Schneider forcing a save, but they headed to the fourth still trailing.

With a little desperation kicking in, Louisville found themselves with a bit of a spark to open the fourth, as they worked an offensive play into the Wake circle. Katie Schneider forced another save, and Minna Tremonti was on hand for the rebound. Unfortunately, Tremonti's shot was wide, and the threat dissipated. It was Louisville's last shot of the evening. Wake took control of the offense from there and was relentless in working to secure an insurance goal. A shot with ten minutes left was saved. As were shots with nine and seven minutes left. The onslaught continued, though, and Elliott had done just about all she could. Wake iced the game at the 53:37 mark with a goal from open play to give the Demon Deacons the final 2-0 lead. 

The effort in goal gave Sasha Elliott a career high nine saves, but it was the offense that let her down, not the defense. Coach Justine Sowry called it a "disappointing result" and said that the Cards were just unable to capitalize while Wake made the most of their chances. The road doesn't get much easier for Louisville in their next match, as they'll take on 16th ranked Liberty on the road. Louisville is 3-3 in ranked matches this season, sweeping non-conference foes. Tomorrow's match is at 12PM on ESPN+.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

I'm out this week celebrating my wife's birthday, but the show continues ever onward. You'll have at least Paulie and Jeff, but I make no guarantees about the other knuckleheads. Jeff will be excited to talk about the successes of volleyball, and I'm sure Paulie will be less excited to talk about the other results of the week. Nevertheless, the show will do what it always does, bringing you the joy and excitement of UofL women's athletics. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

Lax Bows Out of ACC Tournament -- Student-Athlete Mental Health -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Lacrosse Bows Out of ACC Tournament

A season full of 'what ifs' came to a frustrating close yesterday for Louisville lacrosse. The Cards fell in the opening round of the ACC Tournament to Pitt, 13-10.

After allowing the Panthers to score the first two goals of the match, Nicole Perroni went on a 3-0 run by herself to give the Cards a one-goal advantage before Pitt evened the score to close out the first quarter.

The second quarter was rough. Louisville's offense failed to score the enter period while the defense struggled and allowed four goals.

A trio of Cards found the back of the net in the third quarter while only allowing two goals to cut their deficit to 9-6.

A Perroni goal cut the score to 10-7 and a Caroline Blalock score made it 11-8, but Louisville wouldn't come within three until the final couple of minutes and ran out of time for a rally.

Perroni recorded a career-high five goals on the day. Caroline Blalock concluded her collegiate career with two goals. Allegra Catalano also scored two goals and Kylea Dobson added one.

J Pleck saw action in goal the entire match. She recorded seven saves to go along with 13 goals allowed.

For Louisville, a 7-11 season fell short of expectations. The Cards had four losses come by a one-goal deficit and lost a match by three goals and four goals each.

Scott Teeter's squad loses both Sarah Blalock and Caroline Blalock to graduation. Paige Richbourg, Hannah Morris, and Kirsten Parker are all listed as seniors, but all three still have the COVID-19 year of eligibility if they choose to elect to come back.

Student-Athlete Mental Health

One of the least talked about aspects of the life of a student-athlete is probably the darkest part- mental health. In the last few days, two schools have had to break the news of the loss of one of their student-athletes.

JMU softball player Lauren Bernett passed away a day after being named Conference Player of the Week. Wisconsin track star Sarah Schulze passed away on April 13. Both deaths were named as suicide for the cause of death.

Both deaths join a pair of other suicides since the beginning of March. Stanford women's soccer goalkeeper Katie Meyer passed away March 1. SUNY Binghamton University men's lacrosse goalie Robert Martin passed away on April 1.

Over the course of nine years from 2003-2012, the NCAA held a study through several doctors to follow the suicide rate among student-athletes. The original intent was to see if certain genders or sports had a higher suicide rate.

In the study, over 3,773,309 individual student-athletes were included. Of that, there were 477 deaths with 35 labeled as suicide. As anticipated, accidents and physical health related issues made up a majority of the 477 deaths.

The conclusion from the study was that the suicide rate in NCAA student-athletes was lower than that of a normal college student or the general public.

You can read a full released report of that study using this link - https://thecovidblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Athlete-suicide-study.pdf.

However, things change over time. And things have gotten worse. Another study by the NCAA early in the COVID-19 pandemic saw numbers get worse. One of the biggest results of the study was that the rates of reported mental health concerns was 1.5-2.0 times higher than that of pre-COVID-19 studies. As opposed to previous student, women athletes had more mental health concerns than men's athletes.

You can read a detailed report of that study using this link - https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/other/2020/2021RES_NCAA-SA-Well-BeingSurveyPPT.pdf.

I know this isn't joyful or exciting, but it's something that needs to be addressed and talked about much more around the country. Student-athletes have to balance daily life, school, and sports, which for a young person still developing in their early career, can be overwhelming and draining. The increased pressure with expectations of performance on the field/court has only added fuel to the fire.

I'm not expert on the topic, but seeing signs of mental health related issues even of student-athletes at UofL is concerning.

Some might remember the passing of UofL cheerleader Dani Cogswell back during the summer of 2014. Her cause of death was due to a drug overdose with multiple drugs found in her system. Some of those drugs, although illegal, were considered to help with mental health issues such as anxiety.

There's many steps that need to be taken by both the NCAA and each school to help address the issue. One of those is providing resources to the student-athletes.

On A Lighter Note

To end on a lighter note, we will release the answer to the two women student-athletes that I had the pleasure of working with earlier this week. There were some great guesses but no one guessed correctly.

In the white shirt is Abby Baldridge of women's soccer. In the grey shirt is Paige Morningstar of volleyball. The two are roommates and have become good friends in their first year at Louisville. They wanted to get some photos together and I was happy to oblige.

One of the cool things about working with student-athletes outside of their sport is getting a chance to know them better and get their personalities. They are able to showcase their sense of fashion and relax more with it being a low pressure situation.

Both young women were a blast to work with!

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

Red Black Scrimmage -- WSoc Hosts Western Michigan -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

VOLLEYBALL RED VS BLACK SCRIMMAGE 

We are starting to get in the swing of things again with several fall sports having started or are about to start. Volleyball hosted their annual Red Black Scrimmage last night. Worldwide was in attendance last night. With the start of band rehearsals picking back up last night I was not able to make it out to L&N Federal Credit Union Arena.

Some of you may remember that prestigious music conference the group I'm in- the Louisville Winds- performed in up in Chicago back in December 2019. After nearly a year and a half of not playing together, we finally got back to playing again. And we already have been invited to another big music conference at the beginning of next year!

Worldwide had all sorts of positive comments on volleyball last night . One of the promising signs was Ayden Bartlett getting a lot of playing time in the libero spot. Elena Scott and Alexa Hendricks also spent some time in the odd-colored jersey. Tori Dilfer was the clear favorite to be the starting setter again, but Rachel DeMarcus also saw some action in the same position. We did find out that Paige Morningstar is planning to redshirt this season.

Scores of matches are of a secondary nature in Red & Black scrimmages. We do know Aiko Jones' squad won the first set 28-26 per Jeff.

 

CARDS WSOC VS. BRONCOS

Moving onto tonight, we have the first true regular season game of any sport for the 2021-2022 season. Women's soccer hosts Western Michigan at Dr. Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium at 7:30 p.m. This match can be caught online on ACC Network Extra.

It's hard to preview the first game of the season because there is nothing to scout and base the opposition on. It's even more difficult because of the inconsistencies with last season and the pandemic.

Western Michigan finished last season 6-2-2, all in MAC play. They finished last season winning four straight matches. The Broncos scored 15 goals through 10 games, but did record a strong number of 55 saves.

Like the Cards, the Broncos have an experience goalkeeper in fifth-year senior Maggie Rogers. Rogers had an .861 save percentage last year. Fifth-year forward Bailey Korhorn led the team with five goals last year. Morgan Ottenson and Jenna Blackburn were a big part of the offense each contributed four assists to help power the offense.

Louisville has some experience on their side as well, with veteran keeper Gabby Kouzelos. She has a four-year starting centerback in Sarah Hernandez helping corral the back line. Taylor Kerwin, Maisie Whitsett, and Delaney Snyder have all been a big part of the team in recent years and enter their final year with the program. We did not see Snyder in the 2-0 exhibition win against Ball State last week, no information on her status yet for tonight. 

Snyder is expected to be a big part of the new offense, if she plays, with help from graduate transfer Mikayla Hampton. Ravin Alexander has converted to a forward and showed the impact she can make with her performance against Ball State. The Cards started five freshman n the exhibition we'll see if  that holds tonight. 

Louisville's schedule is rather unforgiving once conference play begins so we hope to see plenty of non-conference wins to slingshot the season out of the starting gate.

Paulie should be there and Sonya will accompany him. She made it out to the scrimmage on Saturday. Worldwide made it out for the scrimmage, and with free admission this year, we hope to see him at a few matches this year. In the past, Case had season tickets to soccer so it's a safe bet he will make it out there from time to time. Daryl will be running the video camera crew at the Bats game so she will not be in attendance. I plan to be back on the field taking pictures.

                                                    *****************************

Jeff Walz has a presser scheduled today at 2 p.m. (on-line) that Paulie and a few of us will monitor and we'll bring you that tomorrow, along with the recap of WSOC.  No earth-shaking news, as far as we know, upcoming from Walz, he hasn't done a presser in awhile and this is just planned as a "catch-up, how we're doing" event. . 

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

USA Basketball, High School Volleyball, and Olympics -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 USA U23 3x3 Team Announced

Shortly after Jared's article about Payton Verhulst's USAWBB involvement went up yesterday, news of more Cardinals joining the Team USA ranks came out. Team USA announced their roster for the FIBA 3x3 U23 Nations League yesterday, and two of the four team members currently reside in Louisville. Hailey Van Lith and Emily Engstler will return to the 3x3 court to help Team USA to another championship. 

Van Lith and Engstler are both 3x3 veterans, though neither were on Louisville's 3x3 team in last month's event. The pair both played in the 2018 3x3 U18 National Championship with Van Lith's team defeating fellow teammate Kylee Watson (Oregon) in the championship game. Engstler also competed in the 2017 event. The final member of the four player roster is Madison Hayes of NC State. Hayes and Van Lith have played together before, winning gold for Team USA in the 2019 FIBA 3x3 U18 World Cup. HVL also has a 3x3 gold medal from the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

The event will be held in France starting on August 2nd and continuing through August 4th. The team will convene camp on July 29th. 

Morningstar Awarded

Paige Morningstar added to her trophy case yesterday when she was announced as the 2020-21 Pennsylvania Volleyball Athlete of the Year by USA Today. This came one day after MaxPreps named Morningstar as the top girls high school athlete in the country. Morningstar was named first-team All-State for the third straight year as she led North Allegheny to an undefeated season and their fourth straight state championship. Tori Dilfer should still have the setter position locked up for this season as she has been fantastic for the Cards, but Coach Dani Busboom-Kelly must be wondering what kind of rotations and tactics she can deploy if Morningstar is ready for the college game on Day 1. 

Brief Olympic Update

The three sports we've been most interested in so far for the Olympics are softball, women's soccer, and field hockey. Basketball will get underway in a couple of days. Since Japan is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time, writing in the morning is the perfect time to look at an update for the games

Team USA softball is having the most success so far, as they moved to 3-0 in the Round Robin portion of the tournament. As there are six softball teams, they've got two games remaining to try to make it to the gold medal game. USWNT is next on the docket. They just finished up their second game at time of writing. After a terrible opener against Sweden, Team USA was looking for a bounce back game to stay in contention for the knockout round. They should be able to advance out of group, as they knocked off New Zealand 6-1. 

Finally comes field hockey, where former Louisville star Ayeisha McFerran holds down the cage. At time of writing, Ireland is playing their first match of the tournament against South Africa. They just took a 2-0 lead right before the end of the third quarter. Look out for an update to the final score either on the podcast or in Jeff's article tomorrow. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The show returns this week after a brief hiatus last week. We'll have four of the five regular hosts and should have plenty to talk about. There has been ample news throughout this week that will keep us busy. .

We've had some questions about how to listen to the show since it went off the airwaves so I'm going to run down the links below. If you want to listen live at 11AM, you can do that by going to Cardinal Couple's YouTube page and clicking on the live stream. Following the end of the show, that becomes a published video to the page you can watch back whenever. The other option is to wait for an hour or so after the show ends (a day or two if I'm not on that week's show) for the podcast to be uploaded. You can subscribe to the podcast in any of your favorite podcast platforms to have it sent straight to your device or listen to it right in your browser on the show's Anchor FM page. I also tweet (@bstcasescenario) the show link as soon as it's posted every week. Links to all of this are below.

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Breaker: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-