Counting Down the Days -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Counting Down the Days

No, I'm not counting down the days 'til I say "I do", but that is scheduled for summer of 2023 so it'll be on the countdown eventually. Today, we're counting down how many days until some of our favorite fall sports start up.

In just four short days, the 2021-2022 season begins with women's soccer hosting Ball State. Although the media situation and the COVID-19 protocol remain unclear for the new season we do hope to be there Saturday night. With free admission, we hope to get the entire Cardinal Couple Crew out to a match together for a group photo this season.

Louisville is 0-1 all-time against Ball State. The Ball State Cardinals topped the Louisville Cardinals 1-0 in overtime back on Sept. 9, 2016.

Officially, field hockey is 17 days away but they have their Alumnae Game on Aug. 21 and a scrimmage against Bellarmine on Aug. 22. You could say the Cards are .500 in their Alumnae Game. Louisville and Bellarmine will square off for the first time ever, even if it's just a scrimmage.

The true first game of the season is when Ohio visits on Aug. 27, at 3:00 p.m. Despite a six-game win streak for the Cards, it's the Bobcats owning the all-time series 12-28 dating back to 1982.

Volleyball is also officially 17 days away but their intra-squad Red and Black Scrimmage is the night of Aug. 21. Besides all of the players getting a chance to play and multiple players rotating in the libero position, Coach Dan Meske and Coach Todd Chamberlain will probably step on the court for a few points.

Louisville's first match will be against Cal Poly at a neutral location in Tempe, Ariz., on Aug. 27. This one is set for 10:00 a.m., which is assumed to be Tempe time and 1:00 p.m., ET. Cal Poly won the only match between the two foes in a five set thriller  (30-20, 20-30, 30-22, 26-30, 15-13) on Sept. 10, 2006. That's back in the days when volleyball played to 30 before shortening the sets to 25. Worldwide was still rocking buzz cuts back then.

Cross Country is a little further out, with their first meet being Sept. 3. The Cards will head down to Knoxville for the Tennessee Dual Meets to kick off Labor Day Weekend. The entire lineup for schools has not been announced.

Women's golf has over a month to go before they head up to the Wolverine Invitational in Ann Arbor beginning Sept. 13. By the time women's golf starts their season fall sports will be in the full swing of things when you include football, men's soccer, men's cross country, and men's golf in the mix.

Case has been just a wee bit excited for women's soccer to start as he has hinted on our podcast the last couple of weeks. You'll have to wait until Saturday to get his preview of the match against Ball State.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

USA U 19 FIBA WOMEN ROMP AUSTRAILIA 99-59 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 VERHULST'S SQUAD ASSIMILATES AUSSIES BY 40 

The USA FIBA U 19 WBB squad continued their domination over opponents in the FIBA games in Debechen Sunday with a start-to-finish dominating win over the "down under" ballers from Australia 99-59 in pool play. 

Cardinals freshman Payton Verhulst drew the start for USA and came out on fire, nailing two three-pointers and getting a steal in the first four minutes of the first quarter for USA.

 In an effort to get all of her all-stars a chance to compete in the action, USA head coach Cori Close(UCLA)  played everyone dressed for the game a lot -- Verhulst saw just 18 minutes of action in the romp and all 11 USA players in uniform scored in the dismantling of Australia 

A notable exception from action was Wake Forest guard Jewel Spear...who was held out of the contest under that dubious distinction of "coaches decision" Spear was not not the court nor on the USA bench for the event. No word on whether she'll reappear Tuesday. 

As for Verhulst, she ended the game with eight points and seven rebounds. She also dealt out three assists for USA, who is now 2-0 in pool play. Cori Close has been using Verhulst primarily as a "4" in her offensive sets...and Payton has looked good in the role. With a team that consists of Verhulst, Clark, Sonja Citron, Lauren Ware, Lauren Betts and Azzi Fudd, though, they probably could have entered themselves as an "independent" in the recent Olympics women's basketball tournament and grabbed the silver.  

Stepping up huge for USA was Iowa sensation Caitlin Clark.. The 511" guard that ran roughshod over the Big10 last season accounted for 24 points -- sinking five three-pointers and grabbing nine rebounds against the Aussies. Her 33 minutes on the hardwood led USA in time played. with a 52-35 halftime lead, USA was in good shape and continured to roll over the hapless Aussies. 

If there is a chink in the USA squad's armor, it is from the charity stripe. Yesterday, they went 16 for 26 from the line, a 61% number that would have Jeff Walz glowering over his stat-sheet in dismay. but, USA is 2-0 in their group -- which consists of Italy, Egypt and Austrailia -- and will play the winless Egyptians on Tuesday. 

All told, 16 teams are divided into four groups in Hungary.  Group B consists of Russia, Hungary and Chinese Taipei, Group C has Spain, France, Brazil and Korea and Group D holds Canada, Japan, Mali and the Czech Republic.

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Watching the games on YouTube, I have had some fun listening to the "accounts and descriptions" provided by the sole guy (Coach "J2K") who has done the play-by-play for the USA games.  He seems to get excited about three-pointers more than anything else, and interacts with a host of commenters nin the chat section provided with feed. A typical sequence would consist of: 

"Australia, they have the ball. They shoot. They miss. It is now United States ball. They are moving it. The will try a shot  THREE POINTER BY CLARK !!!! It's good, she made it !!!!" (Somewhere, Arike Ogunbowale is smiling, I'm sure...) 

He also mistakenly identified Verhulst as attending Iowa with Clark, which would be enough to scare the "bee-jesus" out of any Big 10 program,  The commenters called him to task, though, and he finally made the correction. I suppose I should not complain too much, though. The games are available and we can watch. That's a good thing. 

For yesterday's romp, go here:  https://www.fiba.basketball/world/u19women/2021/game/0808/USA-Australia#tab=overview

FIBA events allow "noise-makers" (at least n Hungary) and some well-meaning USA fan, in the two games I've watched, has had access to an air-horn with a seemingly-endless source of pressurized air. Every single USA possession, this moron lets loose a staccato of synchronized blasts in varying patterns that gets old by the 5-minute mark in the first quarter. It continues all 40 minutes. I know, mute the broadcast...Paulie. 

Best of continued luck to USA as they advance, although they probably won't need it against the Egyptians, who have been out-scored 180-101 in their first two tilts.

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GETTING THEIR KICKS IN? 

The UofL schedule of events indicates that Louisville women's soccer was "allegedly" involved in a exhibition/scrimmage with IU last night.  This seemingly took place on campus at Lynn Stadium. None of us from the Cardinal Couple crew made it out to this scrimmage and there is no recap or report on how it went for the Cards. They usually don't keep an official stat sheet either.

That's usually the case in pre-season scrimmage affair, but I'll continue to search for infor/results

Have a marvelous Monday!

paulie 

Verhulst, and a Trio of Olympic Wins - Sunday Cardinal Couple

FIBA U19 World Cup Update

Payton Verhulst and the US U19 Women's Basketball team played their first game in Debrecen Hungary yesterday afternoon, and absolutely pasted Italy, 96-37.

With a lopsided score like that, you would expect playing time to be spread liberally around the team, and that certainly was the case, here.  Verhulst started the game, and played the most time of anyone on the roster, but tallied less than 23 minutes on the court.

Everyone on the US roster got on the court, and everyone put the rock in the hole at least once.  Five players were in double figures.

Payton scored six, made up of a pair of field goals and a pair of free throws.  Add in five rebounds and an assist, and it was a decent outing for the incoming freshman.

The US is in group play with Egypt, Australia, and obviously Italy.  As much as the US put it to Italy yesterday, Australia, perennially a strong contender in women's basketball, beat down Egypt even worse, more than tripling them up, 99-28.

Today's games match up US against the Aussies at 2pm EDT, while Italy and Egypt will be looking for their first win against each other.  All of the FIBA U19 World Cup games are available on Youtube on the FIBA Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/FIBA.

A Trio of Olympic Women's Golds

As the Olympics wind down, the Cardinal Couple Crew have mostly enjoyed watching and cheering.  Daryl and Jared are the real Olympics enthusiasts, but all of us have paid attention and followed various sports the pique our own individual interests.

Three women's teams reached the pinnacle yesterday or early this morning.

Basketball

Post play was the deciding factor as Brittany Griner, A'ja Wilson, and Breanna Stewart combined for 63 of the US's 90 points in the game, while holding the Japanese hosts to 75.

At the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, the tallest player on Japan's Olympic roster is 6'1" (Maki Takada, and Himawari Akaho), so they struggled with Stewie's 6'4", Wilson's 6'5", and Griner's 6'9" stature.  Wilson got five blocks, and three for Stewart and Griner.  Meanwhile, Breanna pulled down a whopping 14 rebounds.  Credit goes to Diana Taurasi for eight assists, with Stewart and Wilson taking advantage of the defense collapsing on them with five assists each.

Volleyball

The USA Women's Volleyball team swept a traditionally very good Brazilian team 25-21, 25-20, 25-14 to win the gold.  This is the first gold for USA Volleyball in the Olympics, though the program had won three silver and two bronze medals.

First serve in the match was at 12:30am EDT, and I didn't stay up to watch it, so I'm hoping to catch a replay of it today, perhaps.  Box scores also seem to be unobtainable.

Water Polo

A sport that rarely makes the Cardinal Couple pages, but the USA Water Polo team also won gold in a solid win over Spain in Water Polo.  Introduced on the women's side for the 2000 Olympics, the USA Water Polo squad has never failed to medal, including golds in 2016, and 2012.

Ashleigh Johnson gets much of the credit in this one.  The first African American women on a USA Women's Water Polo squad, she blocked 73% of Spain's shots on goal, compared to 19% blocked by the main Spanish goal-keeper.

The US offense kept up a relentless attack, at the other end of the pool, leading the team to a 14-5 victory to continue to the US dynasty in women's water polo.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

A full house on the CCRHP this week, and a full agenda. We covered basketball, field hockey, the excitement of having actual events on the schedule for the week, the Kaplan NCAA gender equity report, and more.

It was a great show and is available both on Youtube and your favorite podcast service.

JMcA

More Offseason Awards -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Schneider Earns Another Academic Accolade

Meghan Schneider can't stop being awarded for her academic achievements. After earning the 2020-21 NFHCA Scholar Athlete of the Year Award, the 2020-21 Elite 90 Award for the field hockey championship, and being a finalist for the 2020-21 Honda Award, she's back again with a prestigious honor. Schneider has been named to the Academic All-American Division 1 At-Large First Team by the College Sports Information Directors of America. The team is comprised of 92 players from across all sports in Division 1 athletics. Schneider is one of 21 women on the team to post a 4.0 GPA. She's the first player from UofL field hockey to be named to an Academic All-American At-Large Team since 2009 (Heather Bustanoby, second team) and just the fourth honoree from the program. Jessica Javelet holds the other two, being named to the first team in both 2005 and 2006. 

Though Meghan graduated with a degree in biology while minoring in Spanish, we may still see her around Trager in the years to come as her younger sister Katie continues to play for the Cards. As the NCAA commercial says (this is literally one of the only things I'll give them credit for), most college athletes will go pro in something other than sports. It is great to see UofL provide the resources needed to players to achieve their goals off the field as well as on.

Verhulst is National Athlete of the Year

After being named as the Kansas Female Athlete of the Year and Girls Basketball Player of the Year by USA Today last month, Payton Verhulst became eligible for a larger award. On Thursday night, that eligibility came through. While Verhulst was not named the National Girls Basketball Player of the Year by USA Today, she was instead named the Female Athlete of the Year, a heck of a consolation. Verhulst's awards come after she was named the Gatorade Player of the Year in basketball and the Volleyball Player of the Year in Class 4A in Kansas. Bishop Miege won the state championship in both sports this season, with Verhulst at the helm for both. In basketball, she averaged 19.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game while she averaged 3.7 kills per set with a 0.239 hitting percentage in volleyball. I'm sure Coach Dani Busboom-Kelly isn't done trying to convince her that there is space on the roster sheet over in Cardinal Arena. 

Verhulst's offseason activities will continue today as Team USA kicks off their U19 World Cup run against Italy at 2:30PM Eastern Time. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We're back this week with another podcast, and we've had plenty to cover throughout the week. We'll continue to look back on the week that was while preparing for the fall sports that are just around the corner. Join us as we bring you the joy and excitement of UofL women's athletics on this week's Cardinal Couple Radio Hour. 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
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-

Team USA in the Olympics; -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL

Tokyo has been on my mind. I've had the Games on since they began...pretty much. Track and field has occupied the past weeknights.  By the time this post goes live, Allyson Felix will have run for a 10th career medal — and seventh gold — when she takes part in the 400 meters final Friday, Aug. 6 at 8:35am on Peacock.  The women's 400 final will re-air on NBC primetime at roughly 9 p.m. ET. 

  (photo from @usabjnt twitter)

I know alot of local fans have been anticipating the debut of top-15 freshman, Payton Verhulst, who is playing on the USA team in the U19 World Cup. Team USA is scheduled to face Italy Saturday Aug, 7th at 2:30 PM EDT in Debrecen, Hungary. In 2019, Verhulst was named MVP after leading the USA U16 team to gold.  

A personal follow-up on my golf game and performance at Monday's event.. I wasn't the worst on my team!  Some of my drives were the best ball, some of my fairway shots were the best ball and some of my putts carried our team to a -7 score.  I was pleased with my game, it was a gorgeous day and a lot of laughs were had.  Anybody happen to know the oldest lady to compete for Team USA golf?!  Just want to know all of my options! 

I also got the opportunity to meet Coach Dani Busboom-Kelly at the event.  I told her I was the person who 'makes the replays happen' in house at L&N arena.  She thanked me for introducing myself.  Short and sweet exchange.  I am looking forward to seeing her and the sparkly red blazer back on the sidelines this fall.  We're a couple weeks from an inter-squad scrimmage Aug 21st and just under a month out from the first match at home for the Cards Sept 3rd. 

I'm going to keep riding the Team USA high for these next few days and meanwhile, you should check out this article from Louisville's own Pat Forde for Sports Illustrated.  He wrote about his daughter, Brooke, and their journey to and at the Olympics. Brooke swam at Sacred Heart High School here in Louisville and is good friends with the daughter of one of Paulie's best friends. She's also a "Tree" -- swimming for Stanford.   If you enjoy Louisville references on the national level,  a father's pride in his daughter and behind the scenes stories from the sport world, check it out with the following link: 

https://www.si.com/olympics/2021/08/05/tokyo-olympics-brooke-forde-silver-medal-daily-cover?fbclid=IwAR3eheii_ZnPvTSdip0ynwc4Usmf_D1nq2_fguoD1QRxuYj9T0kV1ayoJU8

Go Cards and Go Team USA 

~Daryl 

Basketball Adds to the Non-Conference Schedule -- Mechi Pastor Interview -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Basketball Beefs Up Non-Conference Schedule

As COVID-19 cases continue to surge as the Delta Variant makes its way to our area, Louisville decided to give us back-to-back days of nice additions to the Louisville women's basketball schedule.

The big name back on the schedule after a one-year hiatus is Kentucky. The rivalry is back! Fans were disappointed when the SEC announced no non-conference games last year as a Dana Evans led UofL team vs. a Rhyne Howard UK team would've been a fun one to watch.

Louisville vs Kentucky will be part of this year's Jimmy V Classic, with the Cards hosting at the KFC Yum! Center on Sunday, Dec. 12 at 1:00 p.m.

Louisville has won four straight against the Wildcats, most recently a nail-biting thriller at Rupp Arena on Dec. 15, 2019. UK missed a last second shot as the Cards held on to win 67-66. Paulie, Sonya, and myself were all in attendance for this one, and we needed some oxygen at the end.

Michigan will also be on the schedule for this season. The Cards and Wolverines got the draw for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. This game will also be at the KFC Yum! Center with a Thursday evening primetime game on Dec. 2.

Michigan was a 6-seed last season in the NCAA Tournament and fell in overtime to Baylor in the Sweet Sixteen. Louisville is 4-1 all-time against the Wolverines.

Both Kentucky and Michigan are expected to be ranked when they visit town so Louisville has a good chance at improving their NCAA Tournament seeding with wins against both. And, don't forget the Cards start the season against another quality opponent in Arizona in South Dakota! 

As of right now, Louisville is at 100% attendance for fans, so we hope to see large crowds at both. However, I would not be surprised to see that attendance policy drop down between now and then.

Mechi Interview

M

ercedes Pastor has concluded her time with UofL field hockey, but she was gracious enough to give us an interview before she heads overseas in a couple weeks. Unfortunately, Paulie was not able to make it last minute so I had Katy join me with the promise of buying her dinner.

Mechi, arguably the best field hockey player in the NCAA last season, will be playing professionally in Belgium while pursuing her master's degree at Louisville's Speed School of Engineering.

We got a chance to ask her about how she got started in field hockey, what brought her to UofL, her experiences in her time here, and her future plans.

I don't want to spoil all the fun from the interview so you'll want to check it out here!

We thank Mechi for her time at UofL and could praise her accolades and accomplishments over the next week, but we do wish her the best playing professionally!

Cardinal Couple Radio Podcast

We are back on air, well, not AM or FM radio, but through our various outlets for the Cardinal Couple Radio Podcast. YouTube is one of the more popular methods of listening in, but Worldwide did provide eight other locations you can listen in his Sunday article.

We are working on a way to add photos and videos to future episodes to add visuals as we talk over them. Photos are a bit easier to get away with, but videos often have a copyright on them from the NCAA, ACC, or UofL. We'll let our mastermind engineering crew work on all of that for us.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

NCAA Gender Disparity Report -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 ALL IS NOT EQUAL WHEN IT COMES TO NCAA

The NCAA Gender Disparity Report was released yesterday.  What it contained was the equivalent to a sucker punch to the gut of women's sports.  In short, the more I read, the more disgusted I became.

I know that our premise and mission statement here at Cardinal Couple is the joy and excitement of UofL (and other schools) women's sports. I step away from that today to bring you highlights of the report -- a report brings neither joy nor excitement. 

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*EVERYTHING* at the NCAA exists to support D1 Men's Basketball.  Even the organizational structure.  EVERYTHING else is secondary to that

-- CBS paid $1.1B for MBB television and corporate sponsorship administration contract

-- NCAA paid $34M for a package of 29 other NCAA championship television rights.

-- It is estimated that the WBB tourney alone is worth around $100M, which is 3 times what the whole package was sold for.  If NCAA were a corporation, shareholders would be at the door with pitchforks

-- Sponsors for anything other than MBB had to pay CBS to be part of a "sponsorship program" they administered, and then separately pay ESPN to get commercials on their channels. Talk about your Strong disincentive. Money from the sponsorship program, regardless of which sport or championship was sponsored, gets accounted for as MBB revenue because it was part of the CBS contract

-- Revenue sharing to conferences is based on the advancement of MBB automatic qualifier from conferences. There was no similar incentive for a WBB automatic qualifier . And, naturally, this Influences how conferences and schools invest !

-- Food. A Texas based grocery chain) dropped off food bins for athletes. NCAA staff sent them back because some of the items were from competitors of NCAA corporate sponsors. Included in some bins were notes from a local youth group supporting the athletes and calling out the NCAA, the staff refused to distribute them.

-- On gift bags, the NCAA claimed, at the time, that spending was roughly equal This was not so, more than double on men’s. On supplies and accessories kits, $70k for men, none for women

-- On “March Madness” The singularly use of the term was blamed, during the tourney, on a contract with CBS, but that was not true. It was also said that women’s basketball staffs rejected it, also not true.  In addition, there were several documented instances over years where women’s basketball staff requested use of the mark, and were rejected, and even reprimanded for it.

-- Other branding. It seems three times the spending for signage at men’s tourney compared to women’s -- *after* attempts were made to address equitability in signage and four times more in the venues

-- Associated events: $5M for Miley Cyrus Final Four concert at men’s tourney, no comparable event at all for women’s tourney. 2019 Tourney Town: $19M for men’s, ~$300k for women’s

And, there's more. If you want to read more of the report...go to

https://ncaagenderequityreview.com/

Gender equality in NCAA Athletics?  Don't make me laugh...

-paulie 

FIBA 3x3 -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Engstler and Van Lith at FIBA 3x3

Photo from GoCards.com

Yesterday kicked off the three-day FIBA 3x3 U23 Nations League. The Cardinal duo joined forces with Oregon's Kylee Watson and NC State's Madison Hayes.

Team USA was part of Group A, which included Spain and Israel. The USA swept Group A, defeating Spain 16-9 to open the event and then taking down Israel 21-10. By winning Group A, Team USA faced the winner of Group B, France.

France looked scary good after winning their opening game over Great Britain 21-3. France then defeated the Netherlands 18-11. France cruised to a 21-10 team win over the USA in the final.

Today's event, Stop Five, regroups the teams with France and Great Britain joining the USA in Group B. Stop Six is Wednesday where the US will be in Group A with Great Britain and Israel. The format remains the same with all teams playing a round robin tournament in their group with the two group winners facing off in the final.

Due to the focus on the 3x3 Olympics, USA Basketball's website did not provide stats for the games. However, we know that HVL and Engstler each had three points in the final, tied for leading the USA.

The FIBA 3x3 Twitter account (@FIBA3x3) shared a video of an interview with HVL. She talked about some of her favorite things such as her favorite basketball move, music, tv show, and sport outside of basketball. Did you know she considered being a dual sport athlete with the second sport being softball? Van Lith loves to say "and one" as her most common trash talk line. Dana Evans was often heard using the same line on the court.

We will have a rundown of today's events in tomorrow's article.

Other News

Although it is not joyful or exciting, and it certainly isn't directly related to UofL women's athletics, we would be remised if we didn't address Coach Quentin Hillsman resigning for Syracuse. The now-former Syracuse women's basketball coach was the winningest coach in program history and even made it to the national championship game in 2016.

Coach Q was under fire due to several accusations regarding abuse and mistreatment of players as well as unwelcome advances. The findings of the investigation have not been released, but all signs point to the accusations being true. Any type of inappropriate behavior or abuse of players should not be permitted despite the successes of the coach.

We will continue to follow this story as more news develops.

On a much lighter note and actually pertaining to UofL, Paulie and I are trying to work our magic with Mechi Pastor before she heads overseas to play professional field hockey. She will remain a student at UofL, as she completes her master's degree at the JB Speed School of Engineering. English is not Pastor's first language, which is why she was absent from Cardinal Couple interviews in the past, but she is confident enough in herself and her English skills to try her hand at one now and we are excited at the chance to talk with her!

Our illustrious writer Case Hoskins is a Speed School graduate and Worldwide spent a couple semesters over there so they can tell you how challenging the program is and how impressive it is that Pastor will complete her master's while playing professionally. I had a world cultures class held in one of the Speed School buildings, but engineering was not my strong suit. I'd probably derail the train.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Locals on the Squads -- MONDAY CARINAL COUPLE

 LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TALENT ON FALL ROSTERS FOR CARDS 

As we get nearer to the beginning of the University of Louisville women's fall sports schedules, let's take a look at three of the activities we'll follow closely at CARDINAL COUPLE (Women's Soccer, Field Hockey and Volleyball) in terms of local high school athletes who have joined these three rosters. 

Here at CARDINAL COUPLE, we await to see what guidelines and implementations the ACC is going to hand down to UofL as far as how we'll be able to cover activities. Of course, we always love the chance to cover these in-person and live-on-the-spot --- but with the spike in the Delta Variant of the Coronavirus -- we're not sure yet whether we'll be doing that or just following events on our laptops and ACC Network broadcasts..

Either way, we'll do our best to get you the news. 

A Fall Sports Media Day from the past

We also haven't received any notification yet on a potential Fall Sports Media Day date and time for women's athletics. Yearly, this is a great event for us to get interviews, comments and talk to the coaches and student-athletes that'll be doing the work. We hope it'll occur after a pause last year because of the pandemic.  

Today, we'll look at women's soccer.

Either myself or one of our other illustrious writers will cover Field Hockey and Volleyball "locals" as their season get closer to a start.  

WOMEN'S SOCCER

Karen Ferguson Dayes' "Kicking Cards" get it underway first for the fall UofL women's sports squads on August 14th....when Ball State comes to town... so we'll start there.

WSOC has a roster of 26 student-athletes, as of the latest listing, and out of those, there are three "local" Cardinals we'll keep an eye on. 

Cassie Amshoff is no stranger to us or the program. The senior forward from Louisville's Sacred Heart Academy begins her fourth year as a Card. She was an integral part of the squad last season -- starting in nine matches for UofL. Although she did not score a goal in 2020, she was a major part of the offensive attack. As an aside, she was the Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year in women's soccer in 2017 -- her senior year at SHA. 

Savina Zamborini is a sophomore forward for UofL that played her high school soccer at Louisville Manual High School. As a freshman in 2020, she saw action in 10 games, with three starts. Although she did not score a goal, she did record five shots with three of them "on goal". Savina was named to the United Soccer Coaches All-South Region Team in 2019 -- her senior season at Manual -- and First Team All-State in Kentucky. She scored 40 goals in her final two seasons at Manual.

Incoming freshman Brooke Dardano joins Louisville as a freshman out of South Oldham High School. She's a midfielder and had outstanding campaigns in her final two years out in Crestwood. She tallied 11 goals and 27 assists in her junior season at South Oldham. Here senior season was shortened by the pandemic, but she was still able to get six goals and six assists. Her squad was an impressive 44-12-3 in her final three years. 

As a whole -- the Louisville women's soccer roster enlists 10 incoming freshmen, five sophomores, three juniors and eight seniors. 

One of the major questions for 2021 involve who will take up the scoring mantle now that Emina Ekic has graduated. To be sure, there is a wealth of experience returning that could step up and implement "goals" in Sarah Hernandez, Ravin Alexander, Taylor Kervin, Corienne Dente, Maisie Whitsett, Morgan Bentley, Delaney Snyder and Cassie Amshoff --- all who were on the field at forward or midfield for Louisville last year. The Cards also have transfer Mikayla Hampton on the squad, who comes in from Northwestern as a redshirt senior. And....who knows which freshmen might step up to provide the scoring punch. 

On the defense and back in goalkeep, Gabby Kouzelos returns as one of the best tenders in the ACC. She brings in 69 starts in her four years at UofL and had recorded 73 shutouts in those four years. Opposing ACC Coaches have to be shrugging their shoulders when it comes to figuring out ways to get the ball past "Gabby the Goalie"...

New Cardinals assistant coach Nick Stirrett will most likely have a say when in comes to "balls in the net" At his previous stop (Oregon State) he was part of a staff that saw the Beavers goal-scoring go from six goals in 2018 to 31 in 2019. 

Let's get it started at Lynn -- we can't wait to see what this 2021 version of Louisville women's soccer looks like !! 

Have a marvelous Monday! 

paulie

WBB News - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Verhulst a Leader in U19

Incoming freshman Payton Verhulst is making waves with the USA Basketball U19 World Cup team.  The World Cup doesn't start in Hungary for another week, but after the training camp from the 21st to the 27th, the team has traveled to Europe and is playing in some exhibition play for warm ups.

No schedule of exhibition games is readily available, but stats sheets have been posted for two exhibition games so far against Spain in Guadalajara Spain (just northeast of Madrid).

In the first game on the 30th, Verhulst helped the US cruise to a easy 74-53 victory by putting up 11 points, and pulling down nine rebounds.  Add in an assist and a couple of steals, and her +/- rating was the highest of any player in the game at +23.  Jersey Betts, and Lauren Wolfenbarger did outscore Verhulst with 14 and 12 points, respectively.  It was a good spread of offense on the team with another five players scoring between six and 10 points.

The second game was contested yesterday, again against Spain, with another easy US win 79-59.  Verhulst led the US team scoring in this game, with 14 points, all from the field with two beyond the arc.  Payton again cleaned the backboard with a team leading seven rebounds.  Out in the passing lanes, she also gave the Spanish fits, with four steals.  Again, the offense was spread around the team with nine of the 11 players that got on the court scoring at least five points.

These two teams will meet one more time in exhibition, tomorrow morning at 6am EDT before travelling to Debrecen Hungary for final preparations and practices or the World Cup competition.  Debrecen is in eastern Hungary, near the border with Romania.

USA Basketball 3x3

As has been reported previously, Hailey Van Lith and Emily Engstler will get some practice together on the basketball court before UofL's training camp begins, albeit in a different form of the game.  Rising Sophomore Van Lith and incoming transfer from Syracuse, Engstler have been working with the USA Basketball 3x3 Team training camp and are traveling to Voiron, France to compete in the final half of the FIBA 3x3 U23 Nations League 2021 competition.

Stops four, five, and six will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday in France.

Van Lith and Engstler are joined by NC State's Madison Hayes and Oregon's Kylee Watson to for the 3x3 roster.

WBB Verbal

There has been a media report of 6'0" wing Jalyn Brown out of St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, MD, alma mater of another UofL great, Angel McCoughtry.

This appears to be confirmed by a pair of Tweet's from Jalyn's father with a picture of Jalyn showing the L and a commitment video.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We had a solid CCRHP yesterday, with Jared, Case, Paulie, and myself reporting for duty.

On the agenda was WBB scheduling news, some WBB recruiting discussion, a new assistant golf coach, Irish Field Hockey sporting a UofL alumna, Lacrosse recruiting, Volleyball recruiting, Olympic Volleyball, Women's Soccer scheduling info with a bold prediction from Paulie, and more.  Check it out below.

You can also catch the podcast form that Case puts together at all of your normal podcast locations including:
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

JMcA