WBB faces Pitt today -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 PANTHERS COME TO LOUISVIILE 8-9, 1-3 IN ACC

The Cards will look to extend their win streak to nine straight games when they host Pitt at 2 p.m. today. The contest will be shown on the CW if you can't attend. That's channel 7 on my Insight TV package, I guess that can vary...depending on how you watch your "idiot box"

Pitt comes to Louisville after slipping by Boston College 64-61 last Sunday in Boston. The Panthers used a strong 23-8 fourth quarter to erase a 53-41 deficit after three quarters. 

Hagans

The Pitt squad got 24 points out of Theresa Hagans, a freshman guard out of Utica, NY. and 15 points from Lauren Rust..(no, not the Louisville associate AD/Compliance and Sports Administraton lady) The Pittsburgh Rust is a sophomore forward out of Victoria B.C. 

Lauren Rust, Pittsburgh version

Notable Panther losses have come to Mississippi St. 79-44 and Clemson 73-41.

So, these Panthers don't seem to have much claw and should be an opponent that will hopefully give coach Walz a chance to go deep into the bench and develop the talent there. 

Lauren Rust -- Louisville version

We'll recap it Monday. We are still blacklisted from UofL Press Row for women's sports at UofL. but...we still report on the games, though, because you...the readers...ask us to.    

We are Cardinal Couple. I just want to get my reporters back on Media row for coverage of games...my health , sadly, probably prevents me from ever going again. 

paulie

Cards Beat the Cats...Again, and WBB - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Cards Beat the Cats...Again

It hasn't been a total academic year sweep for the Cards over the Cats, Kentucky did get the wins in the two "biggest" sports, football and, unsurprisingly, Men's Basketball, but otherwise, the Cards are generally coming out on top of the Cats when they meet this year.

The two teams didn't compete in women's soccer this year, but the men did get the dub over the Cats.  Volleyball is the other traditional fall meeting, where DBK's squad swept UK all the way back down I-64.

The latest edition of the Cards' overall dominance over the Cats came yesterday in the Ralph Wright Natatorium, where both the men and women earned solid wins over UK.

Both of the Cards teams won by substantial overall margins, 210-90 for the women, and 209.5-88.5 for the men.

Highlights include the 200 medley relay where the Cards entered two teams, and they came in first and second.  The top finishing team included Karoline Bennett, Ella Welch, Christiana Regenauer, and Gabi Albiero and just barely missed making an A cut time.  The 200 individual freestyle also had two Cards in the top two spots, as Summer Cardwell touched first, just edging out teammate Fernanda Celidonio.

Paige Hetrick topped the podium in the 100 backstroke with a B cut qualifying time.  Teammate Ally Boynton took second.  Ella Welch won the breaststroke, but UK managed to get the second spot in this one.

Stop me if you've heard this before with UofL Women's Swimming...the 200 Butterfly.  Yes, following in the...footsteps?  splashlanes?...of Kelsey Dahlia (nee Worrell), and Mallory Comerford, the latest UofL fly great, which to be fair we've talking about for a few years now already, is Gabi Albiero, beating the rest of the field yesterday by three seconds.

A full sweep for UofL in the 50 freestyle, and wow if you've never seen one of these events in person, it's crazy intense being just a single lap up and back in the pool.  And since NCAA still works in yards for their events, it's even quicker than International 50's which are measured in meters, adding almost another 15 feet to the event.  Christina Regenauer topped the podium, joined by Julia Dennis and Karoline Barrett.

Lindsay Gizzi, fresh off her spring sports media day appearance won the three meter springboard in diving, part of an ongoing surge in the Cards' diving prowess.

Back to the long pool, UofL dominated even more in the 100 freestyle, filling the podium for points, and just to add insult to injury took 4th with an exhibition swimmer.  Christina Regenauer, Julia Dennis, and Lucy Mehreban scored points, with Ella Welch taking that 4th place spot as an exhibition swimmer.

Kim Herkle won the 200 breaststroke.  Summer Cardwell took the 500 free by an easy four seconds over teammate Maddie Luther.

Another full podium of Cards for the 100 butterfly, yup, Gabi Albiero on top, joined by Christina Regenauer and Karoline Barrett.  The swimmers in the 200 Individual Medley pulled a, "yeah, well how about this", filling the top four spots all with Cardinals.  Fernanda Celidonio, Kim Herkle, and Tristan Ulett kept Maddie Hall off the official podium, but all were no doubt celebrating together.

And, to cap it all off, the 400 freestyle relay was also taken 1-2 by the Cards A and B teams.  Gabi Albiero, Julia Dennis, Lucy Mehreban, and Ella Welch made up the winning A team, with Bianca Costea, Karoline Barrett, Fernanda Celidonio, Tristen Ulett comprising the 2nd place B team.

Really a great win for the Cards over the Cats to extend the UofL success in the rivalry for the year.  Baseball and Softball will be final meetings between the two schools.  Softball only plays the Cats once this year, here at Ulmer, but Baseball will play a home and home with one game each in Louisville and Lexington.

WBB Hosts Pitt

Pitt joins the Cardinals for a game at 2pm today at the KFC Yum! Center.  They'll be looking to build on their success Thursday where they beat Virginia.

Pitt didn't exactly schedule a barn burner of a non-conference schedule, but even as such, they finished just barely sub-.500 before diving into the harder ACC schedule where they lost six before getting the four point win over UVA.

You can never take a day off in the ACC, but hopefully today will be a day for the Cards to concentrate on some of the uneven parts of their game and improve.

The Cards did, of course, win the first matchup of the year against Pitt, and you would be forgiven, if you just looked at the final score and thought it was an easy win for UofL.  However most of the 30 point margin of victory came by outscoring Pitt 26-6 in the fourth quarter.

The main threat from the Panthers is Liatu King.  She's not an outside shooting threat, not having taken a single three point shot all year, but she does hit over 55% of the shots she takes from elsewhere on the floor.  She averages 19.5 points per game and maybe even more impressively, over 10 rebounds per game.  If the Cards can block her out from the boards, and mostly keep Pitt to single-shot possessions, that will go a long way towards securing the victory.

It is a 2pm start, as mentioned above.  If you can't make it to the KFC Yum! Center, coverage is on ACC Network Extra where you'll get Jeff Grier on play by play, and Jessica McDaniel (or as we mostly remember her, Jess Laemmle - Attack Yorkie).  As always, you have the option of hearing Nick Curran verbally paint the picture of the game on 93.9FM, with the non Attack Yorkie but still great Cardinal Alumna Cortnee Walton on color.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Jared chose to go do photos for the Men's Basketball game against Virginia, so he wasn't on the CCRHP call yesterday.  Paulie is still out on the IR list, but continuing to recover with the help of our ongoing well wishes.  That left Case, Daryl, and myself on the call.

We gave quite a bit of time to WBB, as is typical this time of year, but we did get a nice recap from Case of the Spring Sports Media Day.

I do have a correction from my "Final Thoughts".  I claimed that no home team had won a match in the Pro Volleyball Federation league yet (there are only three matches in to the season, so it's not that crazy), but in fact the Thursday match between the Grand Rapid Rise, and the Columbus Fury was in Grand Rapid, rather than Columbus as I had thought.  GR did get the win in a sweep powered largely by Claire Chaussee's whopping 21 kills.  Were still looking for a four set win in the league, though, as we've had the above sweep, and a pair of five setters.

Check out the podcast at it's anchor.fm/spotify home at:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/UofL-Drops-First-Conference-Game-e2f0t9h

-- 

JMcA

Louisville WBB pounds Pitt 77-53 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

CARDS WIN FOURTH IN A ROW AT PITT

Louisville women's basketball got 20 points from Hailey Van Lith, 11 points and 13 rebounds from Olivia Cochran and Alexia Mobley saw her first action of the season for the Cards, in the lopsided win in Pittsburgh. It was a Cardinals squad that looked far better than the one that lost two games in the Battle 4 Atlantis and, like in the Bellarmine game...the Cards defense came out and set the tone and the widening margin for three quarters of play. 

Louisville (9-4, 1-0) also gave the viewers a nice surprise when Alexia Mobley was cleared to play (finally) and she took the court in the fourth quarter with Norika Konno, Morgan Jones, Jalyn Brown and Zyanna Walker to finish out the Cards win. 

Hailey Van Lith hit buzzer-beaters at the end of the second and third quarters from three-point range and the Cards didn't do that badly from the floor, shooting 55% from the floor (19-53 and 58% from three-point range (7-12). It was the Cards defense, though, that was maybe the most impressive aspect of this game. Louisville held Pitt to 19 first half points, in blowing out to a 39-19, 20-point lead and bumped that up to a 30-point, 64-34 point advantage after three quarters. Pitt shot just 34% (20-59 for the game and 26% from three-point land (5-19).

If your opponent can't score, your chances of winning go up dramatically -- and Pitt played like the team that was picked to finish 15th (out of 15) in the ACC Pre-season poll of coaches. 

It was a 31-point lead with 3:44 to play (75-44). The 9-2 closing run by Pitt was nice for them, I guess, but it came long after the contest was over and was aided by four Cardinals turnovers. 

The Cards also got significant scoring from Merissah Russell ( 9 pts.) and eight points each from Josie Williams, Morgan Jones and Liz Dixon. Kasa Robinson did not play, still under percussion protocol. 

Maybe the Cards DID get better today, as Van Lith alluded to in the post-game interviews with the ACC broadcast crew. Maybe teams are supposed to after 12 games, unless they've already tanked for the season. What's impressed me, though, has been Louisville defense, not Van Lith ability to sink buzzer-beater threes. True, it hasn't been against "powerhouses" and you probably won't see Pitt or Bellarmine in the Sweet Sixteen come March, but as this group of players -- a lot of them new to each other as teammates -- continue to grow and develop...I can see more good things happening for Walz's squad. 

COMING UP

The Cards will go to DePaul for a Weds. night contest against Doug Bruno's Blue Demons next and then have eight days off for Christmas break. Doug's crew is 8-3, with losses to Northern Illinois, Cleveland State and Towson. It's a 8:30 p.m. game and the Cards are 4-3 against them in the two's last seven outings. FS1 is listed as having the broadcast, i know they're on my cable system at channel 551. Then, a week off for the Christmas break. 

THE FRED REPORT

(Our annual tribute to a women's basketball player named "Fred" 
Pitt's former star Fred Potvin { 2013-17 })

FREE THROWS -- You can't knock 12-13, can you? Only four players attempted them and Hailey led the way with 5-5 shooting. We'll award a CAPITAL "F" here, most definitely.  

REBOUNDING -- 41-26 in favor of the taller Cards, and an impressive 32-16 on the defensive portion of them. We mentioned Cochran's 13 and we have no problem in awarding a CAPITAL "R" here. 

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- 19 assists on 29 made baskets is a good number, and Louisville had a 32--22 edge in points in the paint. UofL did lose the fast break points and second chance points stats, though. Louisville also had 20 turnovers, compared to Pitt's 15, so we'll go with a small case "e". 

DEFENSE -- The Cards did a good job on limiting the frequency and number of Pittsburgh baskets, as we pointed out earlier in the article, but only managed 5 steals, compared to Pitt getting 10.  Still, when you are leading by "30 after 30" your defense must be doing something right, so we'll award THE CAPITAL "D" for that and the mere 53 points Scored. 

FINAL FRED REPORT:  F-R-e-D

SCHETNAN TO ENTER TRANSFER PORTAL

She came to Louisville to try and play both women's basketball and volleyball. After a season of sitting the bench on the WBB squad, she switched over to Volleyball and pretty much did the same. Washington H.S.(South Dakota) grad -- and high school teammate of PK Kong -- Sydney Schetnan has entered the transfer portal. 

Sadly, the road for playing time was pretty much blocked for her despite her height (6;5") at Louisville. Trying WBB first, she was on a team with Emily Engstler, Liz Dixon, Olivia Cochran and Ramani Parker -- so playing time was limited there. Then, moving to Volleyball, she was behind hitting and blocking veterans Anna DeBeer, Claire Chaussee, Kong, Aiko Jones and Amaya Tillman. Plus . Cara Cresse and Nena Mbonu.

(Kong and Schetnan)

Could things have changed for her if she had stuck it out another year or two? That's hard to say, but -- as a rule, a player will sit down with a coach and discuss the future if transfer is on their minds --  we can only guess that Schetnan didn't hear what she wanted to. 

So, there goes Walz's recruiting class of 2021, with Verhulst gone now, as well. Alexia Mobley, hampered by injuries seemingly sine she got to Louisville, remains -- but most considered her part of the 2022 class,  who just arrived early. 

We, at Cardinal Couple, wish Schetnan the best wherever she ends up. I wish things could have gone differently for her, I always thought she had that Volleyball height and skill to really be something at Louisville. 

paulie

Pitt today -- W Tennis downs SEMO St -- Swimming at the YUM -- Batter Up Brunch -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE.

Pitt Comes to the Yum!

0-7 in conference, 3-15 overall.  Honestly, and trying to be a respectful as possible, that may be about all you need to know about Pitt before today's later afternoon matchup.

The Panthers come in with wins only against Central Connecticut State, Fairleigh Dickinson, and Ole Miss.  UCF beat them by 14, Georgetown by 10, and Duquesne by 19.  None of these are strong teams in overall NCAA play.  In conference, loses have come by margins of eight to UNC, eight to Notre Dame, nine to Boston College, 12 to Virginia Tech, eight to Clemson, 18 to Syracuse, and to NC State?  Well, that one may have gotten an R rating for being just gruesome.  The Wolfpack ran off with a 22-0 run to start the 3rd quarter and won the overall quarter 30-4 on their way to a 88-44 finish.

The only main statistical category that Pitt is beating it's opponents is rebounding.  They do have that edge on both the defensive and offensive side, though the offensive rebounding margin is razor thing on the season.  Aysia Bugg is the scoring leader, averaging 13 per game, close behind is a committee of Amber Brown, Dayshanette Harris, and Gabbie Green, all scoring between 9.9 and 9.5 points per game.  Starting in the post, look for Cara Judkins, she's good for the highest scoring percentage on the team, but it's only 4.5 per game.  At 6'2", I don't think she'll provide a huge challenge for Kylee or Bionca.

Wins are what is looked for in the season, and this should be a relatively easy one.  I hope that Coach Walz can use this one for some teaching time with a little less pressure on getting the team into the winning side of the scoreboard.  We've all watched and cheered as this team has started to "figure it out", but there's still quite a ways to go on that journey.  While the level of competition plays into some of that, it can also be nice to have a less pressure filled game to give players a chance to make mistakes, play through them, and learn from the experiences.

A feel-good romp should make for a fun time in the KFC Yum! Center this afternoon.  It's a 4pm tip and is on the ACC Network, so there is no need for streaming today.

Tennis Back in Action

South East Missouri State comes to Louisville for a double-header today vs Mark Beckham's Tennis squad.

I haven't caught up much with the Tennis team this year, but they are transfer-laden, with seven of the 10 players on the roster listed as having transferred from another University, and also have a significant international flair, having a pair of Argentinians, a Russian, a Canadian (Toronto), and a Bosnian.

The first matchup starts with the doubles as always at 10am, and the second matchup will be at 1pm.  Live streaming of the matches should be available at:

https://gocards.com/sports/2018/2/2/louisville-tennis-live-video.aspx

At the time of this writing, it appears only one of the six courts actually has live video up and running.

Swimming and Diving

It was a the Battle of the Bluegrass, pool party style, yesterday at the Ralph Wright Natatorium.  Our intrepid photographer, Jared was in attendance early, before scooting over to the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour recording.  All reports was that it was an absolute jam packed house, with at least parts of 5 or 6 other sports teams in attendance to cheer on their colleagues against the Wildcats.

The teams split in the results, with the Kentucky women getting the best of the Louisville women with total scores of 160.5 to 139.5.  The Louisville men managed a similar margin of the Wildcats with a total score of 165 to 135.

On the women's side, we got wins from Arina Openysheva in the 100 free, Christiana Regenauer in the 100 fly, and Lainey Visscher in the 50 free.  The three of them, plus Casey Fanz narrowly edged out the wildcats to get the win in the 400 free relay.  The margin of victory was less than two tenths of a second in a nearly three and a half minute long race.

In (well, mostly above) the diving end of the pool, Molly Fears was just edged in the 1 meter board competition, but did come out on top in the 3 meter.

You can see more of Jared's pictures from the event below.

The Swim and Dive team will be back in action Friday with Indiana coming to the Ralph Wright.


Softball Batter Up Brunch

Louisville Softball held their pre-season Batter Up Brunch at the PNC Club yesterday and Paulie and Sonja were there to attend and catch the words.

Sean Moth handled the P.A. duties in his always informative fashion

A great time it was. Here are some audio links from the event:  Vince Tyra made some opening remarks, Alicja Wolny delivered the keynote speaker address and there was a great video about the squad that the attendees got to see while they dined. Celene Funke did a Q&A with selected members of the squad, including Eden Mayo, Catlin Ferguson, Chardonnay Harris and Holly Aprile ended the program with her comments about the event, team and upcoming season.

It was a splendid time for all, and a silent auction was also available for attendees.

THE WORDS:

HOLLY APRILE PRE-BANQUET WITH PAULIE

INTERVIEW WITH CELENE FUNKE

INTERVIEW WITH KEYNOTE SPEAKER WITH WOLNY

VINCE TYRA REMARKS

ALICJA WOLNY KEYNOTE ADDRESS

SEAN MOTH INTRODUCES THE SENIORS

HOLLY APRILE'S WORDS FOR THE ATTENDEES

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

It's a little bit of two steps forward and one step back.  We had four of us in the recording booth at the Louisville Northeast Regional Library branch, and with the added input, I found a new technical glitch.  Poor Jared, the audio interface they have had the 3rd and 4th channels turned off.  Case, Paulie, and I started on channels one and two, plus a separate USB mic, meaning for the first part of the show, Jared is awfully hard to hear.  I did give him my mic to use as I struggled to find the cause of the problem (and you can tell in my extremely distracted responses to prompts from Paulie).  We did find, and fix, the problem after the show.  So this continues to be a learning process.  In any case, you can check out the show below.

--
JMcA