A Busy Friday - Friday Cardinal Couple

A busy weekend ahead for the various fall sports teams at UofL.

Let's get started with...

Field Hockey

Field Hockey swings out west for a noon local time start with the Cal Bears, which makes a 3pm start EDT.

The Bears are 1-1 on the season, with the best comparison probably being the 5-1 loss they took to Duke.

Duke, being an ACC team, is almost certainly quite a good team, so it's not surprising that they beat Cal, but the 5-1 gives us an idea of how much.

My takeaway is that, if we play well, we should come away with a good solid win.

This UofL team is still coming together, but I think they have the chops at this point to be able to get the win over Cal.  We're not aware of any sort of live stream available for this game, but we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for any posted and will tweet the URL for them.

Soccer

The soccer team gets the annual matchup with Kentucky started tomorrow at 7:30 down in Lexington.

This is a quite good Kentucky soccer team.

They're not ranked, but they have beaten the then-ranked Washington Huskies in a 1-0 match to start the season.  A bit of a head-scratcher, though, they promptly lost a 2-0 game against South Dakota State. Beyond that, they beat a couple of less competitive teams in UNC Greensboro, and Toledo. They hung three on UNC Greensboro, and a whooping seven on Toledo. These two games, along with the super competitive Washington matchup were clean sheets for the Wildcats.

The Cards will be looking to play competitively with a team that is playing a very high level of soccer.

Volleyball

Volleyball has their first home match tomorrow night at 7pm downtown at the KFC Yum! Center.

Starting the home slate with Minnesota worries me quite a bit as they are still looking for their first victory of the season. They have taken two losses in the young season, to Texas A&M and to Stanford. Now, to be fair, those are both excellent volleyball teams with Texas A&M knocking on the door of the Top 25, and Stanford ranked second behind perennial powerhouse Penn State. The Golden Gophers have several offensive weapons in Sarah Wilhite, Daly Santana, and Paige Tapp. They also have at least two setters who can give them solid play in Samantha Seliger-Swenson, and Katie Schau.

I don't know Minnesota volleyball specifically very well, but the Big Ten volleyball tends to be big, slow, and powerful. This will contrast with UofL's small, and quick play, so look for considerable differences in playing style. If you watched any of the live stream last week against Illinois, you may have noticed a similar contrast in playing styles.

Volleyball will continue the ACC/Big Ten challenge Saturday night against a strong Wisconsin team who also has a surprising loss on their record book when they tangled with Western Kentucky on The Badgers home floor. Some of the sting from that loss may have dulled with victories the next day over Colgate, and College of Charleston.

Wisconsin is currently ranked 13th in the nation.

JMcA

NCAA Regional Volleyball at the YUM! -- Friday Cardinal Couple

Three Big 10 schools and UCLA set to do battle

The KFC Yum! Center will be the site for the 2014 NCAA Women's Volleyball Regional as the University of Louisville plays host to the Sweet Sixteen teams of Ohio State, Wisconsin, UCLA and Penn State beginning Friday at the KFC Yum! Center.

The fourth-seeded Badgers (30-2) take on Ohio State (23-11) at 5 p.m. in the first matchup . No. 5 seed Penn State (32-3) takes on UCLA (22-11) in the second regional semi-final at 7 p.m. Both matches will be streamed on ESPN3.

The Badgers are making their 12th overall and second straight NCAA Regional appearance after winning the Champaign Regional in 2013. Wisconsin advanced to the NCAA Championship match last year before falling to Penn State in the finals. The Badgers are 2-0 against the Buckeyes this year in Big Ten play.

For the second time in four years, the Bruins are headed to the Bluegrass State for the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament, and just like in 2011, UCLA will face defending champion Penn State in the Regional Semifinals. UCLA is making its 32nd appearance in the NCAA Tournament, improved to 83-28 (.748) with last weekend's victories over LIU Brooklyn and Long Beach State. Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1998, UCLA is 27-5 (.844) in the first and second rounds of the tournament, 20-2 (.909) in first and second round home matches since `98 and 45-6 (.882) in Westwood in NCAA Tournament contests overall.

Fifth-seeded Penn State is set to make its 12th consecutive regional semi-final appearance


. The Nittany Lions advanced to the round of 16 with a pair of straight set sweeps of Siena and Dayton in the first and second rounds. PSU's streak of 12 straight regional semi-final appearances is the longest stretch in Division I. Penn State returns four starters and 11 letterwinners from last year's NCAA National Championship squad.

Tickets are available at the KFC Yum! Center ticket office