Spring Sports Galore -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Spring Events in Full Swing

Normally, on a Saturday morning in the spring, you'll find I've written about Friday evening's softball game. That's usually enough to get through an article, but it often puts the other sports in action to the side, not giving all of the women's sports we cover here the recognition they deserve. UofL has had a busy start to the weekend, in women's sports especially, so I figured that I would give a quick recognition to all of these teams as best as I could.

The aforementioned Louisville Softball team did play yesterday. They took on the Syracuse Orange twice, in fact. In the first game of the day, the Cards jumped on top with a 2 run lead in the top of the first inning. They would score one more run in the top of the fifth and hold on to win 3-2. The second game wasn't quite as fortunate. Syracuse took a 2-0 lead after back to back one run innings in the 3rd and 4th. Louisville got one run back in the top of the fifth, and then scored two runs in the top of the 7th to put themselves in position to win 3-2 again. Unfortunately, they could not hold up in the bottom half of the inning and Syracuse scored two runs to win the game. Louisville is now 24-17 on the season, having rebounded a bit with the series sweep over Virginia, and they'll finish the series against Syracuse tomorrow at noon.

Women's Tennis took on a top 50 ranked team yesterday when they traveled to Clemson. The Cards have been in an extreme rough patch during the conference season, and yesterday was no different. After starting the season 12-1 with a pair of conference wins over Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, Louisville hit the full conference stretch and stumbled mightily. Starting the stretch with a sweep loss at number 3 Georgia Tech, the Cards have since lost 6 straight and 7 of the last 8. Their lone win since starting the true conference schedule was a 4-3 squeaker over Virginia Tech at home. Despite the hard times the Cards have fallen on, there is still at least a little bit of time to recover before the post season. Louisville has a road match against Wake Forest on Sunday before returning home to take on Miami and Florida State next weekend. After that comes the ACC Tournament. If the Cards can recover just a bit in these last few matches, they may get a second wind going forward.

The Track and Field teams both took to Cardinal Park yesterday for the Louisville Invitational. It was an extremely successful meet for the Cards, with both the women's and men's teams taking first. The women topped Purdue and the men beat out Michigan State. With 10 wins on the day, the list of positive results for the Cards is long. Dorcas Wasike won the 5000m and set a UofL record in the process. All other results are available on the Louisville site, as Louisville T&F looks geared up for continued success.

Louisville Rowing got started at the Clemson Invitational yesterday and finished with a pair of top 4 finishes in the Varsity events. The Cards will continue that event this evening and look for additional success against a decent group of squads.

Women's Golf is at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic in Athens, Georgia, where Lauren Hartlage got off to a roaring start in her opening round. Hartlage shot 6 under par in the first round and currently sits tied for second after a 1 over second round. Louisville on the whole sits in 7th place in the event. They're 24 shots off of the leader, Alabama, but are much closer to other schools in the top 5. The event ends today, and Louisville will look for a strong finish in the last two rounds.

Louisville Swimming and Diving are at the TYR Pro Series Mesa event, where they've been since Thursday. Mallory Comerford, as she is wont to do, won the 100M freestyle for Louisville's second win of the event. The event wraps up today, starting at noon local time. Louisville has had significant individual success in swimming and diving recently, and it appears to be only a matter of time before the Cards can really put something together as a team. 

Women's Soccer was in action last night taking on their final spring opponent of the year at NKU. The game was originally supposed to be held in Louisville but was changed for unknown reasons. As is typical, there is no information available from last night's game, but I thought that I would mention it anyway so that you could all remember that I love soccer.

In addition to all of the games and events I've already mentioned, also in action today are Lacrosse  and Volleyball. The Lacrosse team is taking on Virginia at noon (weather permitting), trying desperately to recover from some of the lumps they've taken this season. Despite some disappointing results, Scott Teeter has definitely shown things to be optimistic about going forward with a program that was on the ropes. Volleyball is wrapping up their spring schedule with a match against Butler tonight at 6:30. This one is at Cardinal Arena and the exhibition is free.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

For a full hour devoted to chatter about all of the sports I've just mentioned, plus utter nonsense, be sure to tune into the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour on WCHQ FM. The CCRH is every Saturday (that's today!) from 11-Noon. Paulie will man the studio today, as normal, joined by Worldwide Jeff McAdams and Mike Gilpatrick from River City Cards. No phone call for me today, but the folks in the studio will have plenty to get you through your weekend. Check out 100.9 WCHQ FM, wchqfm.com, the WCHQ App, or WCHQ FM on Facebook to hear/watch the show.

Here's a link to the Facebook Live broadcast:
THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR 4/14/18

Until next time, Go Cards!

-CH-

Recapping a busy UofL women's sports Sunday

MONDAY MORNING @ THE COUPLE:

-Field Hockey rolls past St. Louis

-Volleyball sweeps St. John

-Women's tennis @ Hokie Invitational

-Women's Golf grabs 4th in Irish Tourney

-Women's Soccer drops a close one to WVU

-Angel & USA grab the gold

A busy Monday Morning recap for you...plus we've got the first edition of the UofL Women's Field Hockey blog set up over on the left hand side. They're doing it for CARDINAL COUPLE and we couldn't be happier about it! To the scores, to the action!!!

Field Hockey followed the impressive Saturday win over UConn with a rousting over St. Louis Sunday in Trager Stadium 7-1. This one was a community effort for TEAM CARDINAL...seven different members of The Flock found the net for Pam Bustin's squad and Erin Conrad secured her third shutout of the year.

Nikki Auker started the ball rolling for Louisville (8-3, 2-1) early in the match. Her putback of a blocked Nicole Youman attempt made it 1-0 and the Cards added to that about halfway thru the first half when Hayley Turner...hero of Saturday's UConn match...took a Simone Attles pass and baffled the defense with a drive and score. Louisville kept the first half fireworks popping when Turner set up Haley Jurich with a pass and Jurich slammed it past the Billikens to make it 3-0. CARDINAL COUPLE favorite Tuli Lim ended the first half fiesta when she sticked a penalty corner from Rachel Hollenbach to increase the Cardinal advantage to 4-0.

The Cardinal picked the point production right up where they left off in the final half when Youman worked through Billiken defenders and fed Amber Thomas for a smack past St. Louis goalie Alex La Barge and a 5-0 Cardinal dominance. Hollenbach got involved in the point production next...putting a penalty shot into the net for the Cards' sixth point. Lacey Jurich popped one in as time expired in the match on an assist from Heather Stevens and TEAM CARDINAL walked off the field 7-0.

No rest for success...Bustin takes the girls to Bloomington for a showdown against IU at 3 p.m. on Oct. 4th. Remember to read the Field Hockey Blog on the left hand side of the site for Caitlin Collins report on Connecticut Game Day!

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The Volleyball squad hit the Big Apple Sunday and took a bite out of St. John's in three straight sets 25-17, 25-21, 25-22. The outside hitters for UofL were getting it done and Louisville got 10 blocks in the contest. Louisville (8-5, 3-1) jumped out early in the first game with a 7-1 run to go up 16-1o against the Red Storm. Amanda Simmons aced three serves and Tanya Lukyanenko provided three kills in the win.

Louisville fell behind 10-7 in the second game but rallied back behind Lukyanenko's five kills to regain the lead at 18-17. They outpointed St. John 7-4 the rest of the way to put the Red Storm away.

The Cards grabbed a early 7-1 advantage in the final game and weathered a late Red Storm rally to win by three after St. John cut a 20-12 Cardinal lead to 23-20.

Gwen Rucker had six blocks in the three game sweep and Kasey Heckelman came off Leonid Yelin's bench to spark the Cards with four kills and three digs in the final game.

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Women's Tennis grabbed two singles and two doubles wins in the Hokie Invitational in Blacksburg, VA. Julie Fellerhoff took the "A" division singles with a 6-4, 6-3 sweep over Holley Johnson of Va. Tech. and then teamed up with Mandy Brown to win the "A" doubles final 8-6 against Winthorp.

Sarah Miller had similar success in the "D" division...securing the singles final 6-2, 6-1 over William & Mary's Sydney Smith. Miller and Becca Shine were successful in the "D" doubles championship with a 9-7 win over UNC-Wilmington.

Mark Beckham's racquet rockers head to Knoxville next...to compete in the ITA Regional Championships Oct. 14th.

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Sara-Maude Juneau finished first in the William K. Warren Irish Invitational with a three day score of 215. Her final day 69 pushed her past the competition for the medalist honors. The team didn't do too badly either...tying for 4th with Illinois. Anna Karin Ljungstrom carded a 240 in the three round event, followed by UofL's Marie Castellanos at 241 and Candice Wiley's 248.

The chip and putt Cardinals take to Tobacco Road next for the Tar Heel Tourney Oct. 8-10.

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Soccer dropped a close one to WVU 2-1 in Cardinal Park on Sunday. Julie Casselman booted home the lone score in the first half to tie the contest and the teams took the 1-1 deadlock into halftime.

The Mountaineers put the final score on the board early in the final half when Megan Mischler scored her second goal of the game...getting one past Cardinal goalie Taylor Vancil. Louisville nearly tied the contest late in the match when Christine Exeter drove one to the net from 15 yards out but got it deflected by a diving WVU goalie Kerri Butler.

Louisville (8-4, 2-3) got 13 fouls called against them in the game, compared to just four for the Morgantown visitors. Next up for Karen Ferguson-Dayes futbol fillies...a Friday night Cardinal Park contest against Villanova.

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Angel McCoughtry led Team USA to a 89-69 win over the Czech Republic Sunday with 18 points to capture the gold in the FIBA World Championships. A sold out crowd of over 6,000 cheered on the Czech's in the title game but Geno Auriemma's squad pulled away in the second half for the United States 8th World Championship and first since 2002.

The rowdy Czech crowd created a deafening atmosphere early with chants, bells and horns and hung tough with TEAM USA early...cutting a 40-28 lead to to 40-35 in the final two minutes of the first half. They hit the opening basket of the second half, but five straight points by Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird pushed the USA lead back to eight and that lead increased to 22 points by the end of the third quarter.

Taurasi finished with 16 points, Bird added 11. Tamika Catchings on the win:

"It was definitely sweeter than the one I played in back in 2002. Knowing what we went thru in 2006...to erase that made this special."

Despite the loss, the Czech team celebrated their best finish in two decades with champagne and dancing on the home court after the medal ceremony.

(from AP reports)