Lights Up on Volleyball, Soccer and Field Hockey Today - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Red & Black Scrimmage

Volleyball held their traditional intra-squad scrimmage yesterday afternoon with the 3-1 victory going to the Red Team...for whatever that result is worth.

Kamden Schrand took advantage of the chance to
wear the Libero jersey to shine.

There wasn't wholesale switching of team members between the two teams during the scrimmage but there were some switches that occurred, and honestly, the emphasis was not on who wins or loses, but getting to evaluate the players in a competitive game setting.

There really were no weak spots in evidence for the team yesterday.  If the biggest weak spot last year was in the DS spot, the incoming freshman trio of DS/Liberos has solidified that nicely.  With the split squad format of the scrimmage, Kamden Schrand wore one of the Libero jersey's, which returner Ayden Bartlett wore the other.  What about Elena Scott, you ask?  She was on the sideline in the a boot thanks to a sprained ankle during practice.  She is expected to be back and flying all over the court for this coming weekend for the Washington State match, if not for Troy.  Jessica Drapp and Molly Urban also played well as DSes in the scrimmage.

Jessica Drapp serving

The other two incoming freshmen also acquitted themselves quite nicely.  Reese Robins, who played middle in high school and club, is being shifted to a right side hitter behind Aiko Jones in a notional depth chart.  So we may not see much of her on the court this season (unless, maybe, we play a 6-2 offense?) teams should be on the lookout of the 6'5" powerhouse on the right side next year.  Both Reese, and Alanna Bankston on the left side demonstrated some great swings and plenty of power.  Redshirt freshman Nina Moorer will also likely be a left side resource as she finishes healing up from a spring leg stress fracture.

I wouldn't expect to see Bankston in the starting lineup on the left, however, as I expect incoming UCLA transfer Charitie Luper will be asked to step into the Claire Chaussee shaped vacancy.  At just 5'9", she's definitely undersized as a left side hitter, but, and this is with a previous knee injury and wearing a protective brace, she can absolutely jump out of the gym.  Her hand height on blocking appeared to match or exceed that of 6'6" Cara Cresse when they were blocking together.

Brigitta Petrenko celebrates with Cara Cresse

The last of the new additions to the team is Hungarian grad student setter Brigitta Petrenko.  It's tempting to expect the grad student to get the starting spot given the experience Brigitta bring to the court, but it doesn't seem that's a given in this case, with Elle Glock stepping up her game (and, noticeably, her tone and fitness) from last year.  This is a position that could go either way.  My assessment leans slightly towards Glock, but I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see Petrenko to step out for the starting line-up Friday.  If the unthinkable happens and both are unavailable for some reason, redshirt freshman Alexis Finnvold showed that she would be quite capable of holding down the position without a significant loss of capability.

Elle Glock tries to get one past Hannah Sherman

Beyond the newcomers, the returners performed pretty much as expected, Anna DeBeer showed no signs of impairment from her knee injury even while she acknowledges that it may not being quite at 100%.  It's near enough, anyway.  Aiko Jones was bombing away mostly on the right side as typical.  She expressed a bit of frustration on not getting as much blocking as she wanted, but she did get one or two big roofs in.

Cara Crese, Phekran "PK" Kong, and Hannah Sherman continue the middle blocker position battle from last year.  I expect to see PK predominantly take one of the positions with Crese and Sherman battling for the other, but even with that I wouldn't call PK's position "safe"

.

What does Charitie Luper have in common with
beer?  Lots of hops!

Cece Rush and Ayden Bartlett have improved their DS game some, though they may both be surpassed by this trio of freshmen highlighted earlier.  Even if they're in less in defense, they both have demonstrated their danger to opponents from the service line, so you can expect to see them enter when clutch serving is needed.

The last addition is the lighting in L&N FCU Arena.  Upgraded over the summer, the new lighting system is all LED based with full RGB capability, and more targeted lighting on the court.  Cardinal Couple photog and writer Jared gushed about the new lighting, putting the light where it needs to be, on the players and court, rather than up into the stands, and with much better coloring, making his post-event editing efforts a bit easier as well (white balancing the previous lighting was...challenging).  Being LED based, the lights can also be turned off and on with immediate affect, unlike the previous mercury vapor lamps, meaning the lights can be dropped completely for the intro video which has UofL's videographer, Asaad Ali, super excited for its intro prior to Friday's match.

(All photos, plus more below, by Jared Anderson)

Today's Action

Field Hockey

Field Hockey has another scrimmage, this one again The University of Ohio Bobcats in Athens, Ohio.  No video is available, but let's hope the squad, good though it is, continues to work on converting corners which still seems to be a weak spot for this team.  The game gets underway at noon.

Soccer

KFD's squad heads up I-71 to line up against the Xavier Musketeers.  TV is available for this one on FloFC, but it's not exactly a cheap offering for what it is.  Kickoff is at 7:30.

Offense, of any sort, is the key need for UofL's squad to develop.  A scoreless tie against Indiana State doesn't bode well for the season, but putting some offense up on the scoreboard today against Xavier will calm some nerves around the women's soccer program.

It could be a bit of a tall order, though, as Xavier was in the "Receiving Votes" section of the pre-season coach's poll in soccer.  Their season opener was a 2-0 win over Northeastern Thursday evening.  The two scorers for Xavier thus far have been Samantha Wiehe, and Kennedy Clark, with Clark also getting an assist on the Wiehe goal.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Case, Jared, Paulie, and myself were on the call yesterday for the CCRHP.  We recapped the action in soccer and field hockey, and previewed a bit of the Red & Black Scrimmage.  We're all really excited the Fall season has arrived and there's action to cover.

Check out the podcast at it's anchor.fm, now Spotify, home:  https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Mixed-Opening-Results-e289jfm

-- JMcA

Cece Rush keeping the play alive

Anna Debeer doing DeBeer things

Ayden Bartlett serving

Cara Crese celebrating, with Kamden Schrand and
Anna Debeer

Molly Urban with a good pass.

Field Hockey Opens Exhibition Season With a Win -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Drop Bellarmine 4-0 in Extended Exhibition

Louisville field hockey opened their season yesterday afternoon with an exhibition game against Bellarmine. Whether Louisville was on the road or at home is a matter of linguistic preference, as the teams share Trager Stadium as their home facility. After picking up the win yesterday, Louisville is truly on the road today, as they head up to Athens, Ohio to take on the Bobcats of Ohio University in their final scrimmage tomorrow.

Bellarmine won four games last year, their fourth in D1. Their head coach was MAC coach of the year in 2021, a season in which they also won four games with two of those being in conference. In 2022, Erin Schneidtmiller joined the Bellarmine staff as an assistant coach. As I mentioned previously, the home locker room would have stayed the same, so hopefully it wasn't too much of a transition.

There isn't much out there about this game, since Louisville doesn't typically post box scores for exhibition games. We did have Jared on site, though, so we've got at least the final results and the makeup of the match. Louisville was mostly unthreatened in this one, and they jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first half. It would probably be safe to assume that the Cards tried a few different lineups and introduced some new players in the second half, as Louisville only extended their lead to 4-0 by the end of regulation.

Because field hockey is played to a result in every game, it is important to practice the various post-regulation methods for when they're inevitably employed during the season. As a result, the two teams played one overtime period before going to a shootout. Remember that field hockey overtime is played with a reduced field player count, leading to different strategies and play styles. Neither team scored in the overtime and Louisville finished with a 4-3 advantage in the shootout. 

After the match Jared was able to catch up with Coach Sowry to get her thoughts on the team's performance. You can listen for yourself below, but one of the interesting items she mentioned was that she'll play almost an entirely different squad tomorrow. Jared was also able to throw Coach off a bit with a question that he could have only gotten away with given the final result. The sisters Plumb also got a special shoutout.

Postgame with Coach Sowry

The Cards are back in action tomorrow at noon, though we're likely to find out very little about that match with it being on the road. Their regular season will get underway next Friday when they host Northeastern at 5 PM. Bellarmine will actually open the regular season action at Trager when they host St. Louis at noon that day. Northeastern will also stay in town for the weekend, playing Bellarmine on Sunday. To make things more confusing, Louisville will travel to Evanston to play Northwestern on the 27th.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We should have four in the booth once more as Daryl remains in full house prep mode. We'll have plenty to talk about now that there has been some on field action for Louisville, and I'm sure we'll get some preview time for the volleyball red and black scrimmage, which Jeff will talk about in his column tomorrow. 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

WSOC Draw 0-0 vs Indiana State -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL 

CARDS WSOC AND SYCAMORES BATTLE TO SCORELESS TIE IN LYNN

Hello readers and hello again weekend!  

It's finally game time! The 2023 season kicked off for women's sports with a contest vs. Indiana State at Lynn Stadium last night.

Shoutout to all the 90's babies who might understand the reference below.. 

"We've got a gaaaaaameee.. :D ' 

That's from the episode of Boy meets World where Cory and Eric feel bad for bailing on their dad's Father/Son softball game so they convince him to give them a second chance and they all say together... "We've got a gaaaaaaaameee"

WSOC

Indiana St  0   vs   UofL   0 

The Cardinals were back on the soccer pitch Thursday evening as the dark skies turned into a gorgeous sunset at Lynn Stadium.  

It was probably an exhausting night for the Indiana State defense against the Cardinals, as it seemed like the majority of the night was spent at the Sycamores end of the pitch.   UofL spent 90 minutes trying to find the back of the net but they unfortunately could not connect for one. 

UofL totaled 23 shot attempts in the match with 9 shots in the first half and 14 in the second half while the Sycamores recorded none in the entire match.   Ind. State goalkeeper Maddie Alexander had 9 saves to start off her 2023 season while the Cardinals' Savina Zamborini led "the red" in shot attempts with five, four of them on goal. 

  

Louisville goalkeeper Erynn Floyd might've gotten a little bored in this one.   Lucy Roberts, Lizzie Sexton and Hayley Howard played all 90 minutes for the Cards.  

The Sycamores probably feel pretty good about themselves leaving Louisville, but I bet the Cards were a little bummed about not being able to score off of so many chances, especially because the chances looked pretty promising towards the end of the match.  To me it appeared they just need to speed the game up some and sharpen the edges and hopefully find themselves in the win column sooner rather than later.   

SEE/HEAR POST GAME KAREN FERGUSON DAYES:  HERE

UP NEXT

Louisville @ Xavier 

Sunday 8/20

7:30pm

Volleyball
from gocards.com

TV COVERAGE for 2023 season 

The Cardinals will be on national TV six times this season including an appearance on ESPN for the Louisville versus Kentucky match on Sept. 13. Louisville will be on ESPN2 on Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. when they host Penn State and then again on Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. when they host Stanford. The match versus conference rival Pittsburgh will be aired on ESPNU on Oct. 13 live from the KFC Yum! Center.

The first ACC Network game will be on Wednesday, September 27 when the Cardinals take on Notre Dame at 7 p.m. in South Bend and Oct. 1 at 4 p.m. when they visit NC State.

The Cardinals are set to open the season on Saturday at the Red/Black Scrimmage. The first regular season match will be next weekend when UofL hosts the Cardinal Classic. Those matches and all home and road ACC matchups will be streamed on ACC Network Extra. All of those matches can be found on the ESPN App on smart phones and any smart device and also by visiting watchespn.com.

Field Hockey 

University of Louisville field hockey team will have a couple scrimmages this weekend. The Cards will play host to Bellarmine in a preseason scrimmage on Friday at 2 p.m. at Trager Stadium and will hit the road for Athens, Ohio to face Ohio University Sunday at noon.

(Women's Soccer photos by Jared Anderson)

As always

Go Cards!

~Daryl 

Louisville Women's Soccer Opens Season -- Softball Adds Transfer -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Women's Soccer Opens Season Against Indiana State

We are finally at the 2023 Louisville sports season! Louisville women's soccer opens the season by welcoming Indiana State to Dr Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium. The Cards and Sycamores will kick off at 7:30 p.m. and will be aired on ACCNX.

Head coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes kicks off her 24th season with the Cards with 200 career wins that featured six wins last year. She hit the recruiting trail hard in the offseason, bringing in four transfers and five freshmen.

Louisville has a strong international presence with five players coming into the United States to play for Louisville. Malene Nielsen (Juelsminde, Denmark), Alyssa Zalac (Montreal, Canada), Lucy Roberts (Cheshire, England), Viktoria Wik (Roskilde, Denmark), and Fiona Gaißer (Munich, Germany) are the international players for the Cards.

Maya Maxwell

Kentucky players are well represented on the team with five current players hailing from the Bluegrass State. Betsy Huckaby (South Oldham High School, Crestwood), Maya Maxwell (Ballard High School, Louisville), Savina Zamborini (DuPont Manual High School, Louisville), Hadley Snyder (Assumption High School, Louisville), Brooke Dardano (South Oldham High School, Crestwood) all represent Kentucky.

Last season, Indiana State went 2-11-3 with a 2-6-2 record in conference play. They tallied nine goals while surrendering 27 goals. They were shut out nine times.

Paulie and I will be out there tomorrow and hope to see Case or Daryl make an appearance too.

Kiley Goff Joins Softball 

Louisville softball announced the addition of a new catcher. Kiley Goff joins the Cards after being at Maryland the last two years and a year at Purdue before that. With Maryland's head coach stepping down in the offseason, Goff decided to explore her options and Louisville was her perfect landing spot.

Last season, Goff led the Big Ten in runners thrown out with 13 runners gunned down. She recorded a .990 fielding percentage. She also posted strong batting numbers: 42 hits, 42 runs scored, seven doubles, 18 stolen bases, and a .290 batting average.

With the departure of Sarah Gordon, Goss is primed to move into the starting catcher role from day one for her final year of eligibility.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

The Fall Sports Media Day Interviews -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

VOLLEYBALL, WSOC, FIELD HOCKEY AND TRACK AND FIELD REPRESENTED AT UOFL FALL SPORTS MEDIA DAY

It was a whirlwind mid-day Tuesday, as Sonja and I sat in at the UofL Fall Sports Media Day and asked questions on the UofL Fall Sports Media Day at the Kueber Center.  

We had four women's sports in attendance, and I have the audio/video below: Men's soccer was also there but we did not include them in today's article, since we are a women's sports site

LOUISVILLE CROSS COUNTRY/TRACK AND FIELD

https://louisville.box.com/s/reb5yhfsxqxvwyi30a7jjgq7h7t0sn82

LOUISVILLE VOLLEYBALL

https://louisville.box.com/s/ykfp8qy31gsaqnxuakbpqzlo7von3mid

LOUISVILLE WOMEN'S SOCCER

 https://louisville.box.com/s/zjfd2sqs3eulst3qp7cx4m6h4yxmo8mv

LOUISVILLE FIELD HOCKEY

https://louisville.box.com/s/bv34wqlhs6ryaz1bolcxsthxp0cw6cf1

We were fed lunch (Cane's) and spent an enjoyable 90 minutes socializing and then listening to the coaches and players. We even got a nice treat when we were leaving, we ran into Cortnee Walton and chatted with her a bit. . . 

A special thanks to the UofL SID's for putting this display on twice a year and to Lori Korte who sent me the links to the interviews,, 

paulie

Fall Sports Media Today -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Hosts Fall Sports Media Day

Paulie will journey to campus today for the fall sports media day. All fall sports, with the exception of football, will have coaches and student-athletes present to give statements and be interviewed.

Here at Cardinal Couple, we will follow the happenings of Louisville field hockey, Louisville volleyball, Louisville women's soccer, and Louisville women's cross country. Louisville men's soccer and Louisville men's cross country will also be present and Paulie has been known to stick around and ask questions of men's coaches and student-athletes, too.

Field Hockey

Louisville field hockey went 12-8 last season but struggled in conference play with a 1-5 mark. The Cards defended Trager Stadium well, going 6-2 in home matches, including a shootout victory against Duke. Justine Sowry's squad made their fourth straight NCAA Tournament and 11th overall appearance.

Volleyball

Fresh of a National Runner-Up finish, Louisville volleyball was voted by the ACC coaches to finish first in the ACC again. The Cards went 31-3 last season with a 17-1 conference record. They only had one home loss in 17 total home matches (L&N Arena and the KFC Yum! Center). Louisville has now been to two straight Final Fours.

Women's Soccer

A strong start to last season collapsed quickly once conference play started. Louisville finished their non-conference slate 3-1-2 before finishing 6-8-2. The Cards failed to qualify for the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. Louisville's last finish above .500 was in 2019. The Cards beat Lipscomb in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament that year.

Women's Cross Country

The 2022 season for Louisville women's cross country was a rough one. They had no top five finishes in any meets before going on to finish last in the ACC Championships and 22nd (out of 32 teams) in the NCAA Southeast Regional. Cross country is the only fall sport to have a new coach this season.

If you have any questions you want Paulie to ask, feel free to send them our way. Paulie usually gets some good one-on-one or small group time with the coaches and can get some fun interactions with the student-athletes. He'll have all of his interviews and expert insight posted here on the site tomorrow so make sure to come check out all the interviews here tomorrow morning!

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

For women's soccer "score more" is the directive -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

CARDS NEED TO FIND A SCORING THREAT FOR 2023

Louisville Women's Soccer kicks off their 2023 campaign on Thursday night this week, bringing in Indiana State for a 7:30 p.m. contest in Dr. Mark and Cindy Lynn Stadium. Despite the relative proximity of the two schools (it's less than a three hour drive from Terre Haute to Louisville) -- they've only played once, the 2016 Cards winning that one 4-0 over the visiting Sycamores.  

Kaela Dickerman had two goals in the contest and the Cards dominated offensively with a 21-2 shot advantage and a 13-1 shot-on-goal edge.

  

Last year, ISU (who plays in the Missouri Valley or "the Valley" conference) had a 2-11-3 record, not getting their first win until their ninth game of the season. The defeated Evansville and Illinois State. 

The match will be new head coach Paul Lawrence's debut at ISU...Lawrence was at Florida Southern College prior to coming to Terre Haute. I was not familiar with Florida Southern College, but found out that they are in Lakeland and are a private college with an enrollment of about 3,000

 

Lee

 

The school has produced two golfers that made the PGA -- Lee Jantzen and Rocco Mediate. Two ISU student-athletes hail from the Louisville area...Katey Yankey is a senior midfielder from Floyds Knobs, IN . She has four career goals and Audrey Roberts is a freshman who played at Oldham County High School last year. 

Scoring is key for the Cards. They tallied just 13 goals last season and four of those were from now-graduated Maisie Whitsett. Karsyn Cherry, a defender, had three goals and does return...but the Cards will need to find some forwards and midfielders who can put the ball n the net.

Ravin Alexander returns for her graduate season and has two career goals in her four years. She's also played a lot of defense but seems to be happier on the offensive side of things. I'll also watch and see how freshmen European players Viktoria Wik and Fiona Gaiber (pronounced gay-sir) do for the Cards. Wik was on the U-17 Denmark squad and Gaiber was on the Germany U17 squad. Gaiber is actually spelled with that weird "B" that is used in some European alphabets and sounds like "ss". Maya Anand also comes to the program as a fifth-year player, she scored 10 goals in her four years at Binghamton. 

We'll see what else develops out of this squad...Brooke Dardano could be an essential attacker...she had an excellent game when the Cards defeated top 25 Memphis last season. 

The main emphasis needs to be on scoring. Louisville averaged 0.81 goals in 2022 and that definitely needs to improve. Defense only allowed 22, which is well under two goals a game and defense looks strong again. It's just the tricky matter of putting the ball past the goalie and into the net

Maybe we'll find out more at the Fall Sports Media Day Tuesday on campus. Karen Ferguson Dayes will be there with a couple of players, along with men's soccer, Field Hockey , Volleyball and Track and Field. I'm attending and will report on that in my Wednesday column.

paulie.  

The Cards 

Pre-Season Isn't Completely Behind Closed Doors - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Pre-Season Sometimes Peeks Out

(A quick note from your scribe today to thank the Cardinal Couple crew for covering the past couple of Sundays while I was on a much-needed vacation.  I'm back and refreshed and more ready than ever to get this athletic season started.   --  Jeff)

All three of Fall sports teams that we closely follow here at Cardinal Couple are in the thick of pre-season practices now, Field Hockey, Soccer, and Volleyball are all getting after it.

Mostly pre-season practices are private and fans don't have access, but occasionally the action peeks out a bit.

Field Hockey may be the easiest to glimpse, just based on the structure of Trager Stadium where the team practices and plays.  We're not necessarily encouraging people to go watch, but the playing surface at Trager is visible from a number of spots outside of the stadium facility, so seeing the team in practice happens if you're passing by the stadium while the practices are going on.

Soccer, of course, is also an outdoor sport with an outdoor facility, but the structure of Lynn Stadium on campus does generally prevent seeing the playing surface from outside of the facility with just glimpses through the gates possible.

Volleyball is the indoor sport of the Fall, and their practice and playing facility doesn't have any visibility from outside, but the team absolutely loves playing beach volleyball in addition to their normal indoor form, and the coaching staff does usually indulge them in that during pre-season practice.

This year, Volleyball took to J-Town Beach to play yesterday.  Details are extremely scarce, but apparently they formed smaller teams and played in some sort of tournament form.  The event was also held in support of the Lesley & Rhyan Prather Foundation.

Lesley and Rhyan Prather were, you may remember, the mother and daughter killed in a car wreck on I-70 near St. Charles Missouri on the way to a club volleyball tournament in Kansas City.  Lesley Prather played collegiate volleyball at UofL as Lesley Drury, and was the sister of UofL Volleyball Director of Ops Sarah (Drury) Petkovic.  Also killed in the car wreck were Carrie McCaw and her daughter Kacey.  McCaw played collegiate volleyball at Syracuse.

The Lesley and Rhyan Prather Foundation was created to help women, children, and families deal with tragedies such as car wrecks, pediatric or adult illnesses, and fires.  The foundation's web presence can be found at lrpfd.com.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

A quartet showed up for the CCRHP yesterday, though we didn't try to pull off any singing numbers, I for one was sporting a voice for photography as I'm continuing to try to overcome and recover from a bit of a bug I picked up during my vacation somewhere in the North Atlantic.

The gang rejoiced that there were actual games on the schedule for the week with Soccer kicking off the official season on Thursday vs Indiana State.  Field Hockey scrimmaging  Bellarmine and Volleyball having their Red vs. Black  scrimmages on Friday and Saturday.

We then touched on a bit of news from the week, and then gave some predictions for regular season records.

Check out the podcast at it's home:  https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Summer-Slump-Winds-Down-e27gv5k

-- 

JMcA

NIL Updates and the Looming Season -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Inside of One Week to Action

The summer slump is just about over. Louisville women's soccer officially opened the calendar last Sunday with a road scrimmage against Miami (OH), but with no real information to show for it and no one able to watch it, it might as well have never happened. I imagine the men's team will have a similar situation with their exhibition match against Lipscomb this evening in Nashville (hopefully with a more desirable result). 

After today, the calendar goes dark for just a few more days before women's soccer gets things underway with the season opener at home against Indiana State on Thursday. Interestingly, field hockey appears to be dropping the alumni game this season, as I would expect it to be tomorrow if it was going to happen. The Cards open their schedule on Friday with a home scrimmage against Bellarmine. Volleyball will finally get in on the action next Saturday with the Red and Black scrimmage. Jeff will be sure to bring you all of the news and notes from that one with his column the following day.

Speaking of volleyball, the university announced earlier this week that single match tickets are now available for the matches at the KFC Yum! Center. If you'd like to get out to watch the Cards take on some premier competition and you won't be able to stand in line for one of half a dozen SRO tickets at L&N FCU Arena, now is your chance. Note that if you are a season ticket holder for volleyball, KFC Yum! Center matches are not included in the season ticket package and must be purchased separately. (For any other season ticket holders that aren't aware, tickets for the three neutral matches of the Cardinal Classic must also be purchased separately.) The university is hosting a special deal for anyone wanting to make an event of a Yum! Center match with a group of 10 or more. Be sure to check out the gocards site for more information on that.

Louisville NIL Shop to Open

Campus Ink is a merchandise platform backed by Mark Cuban. They built their brand on providing merch for fraternities, sororities, other student organizations, and fan experiences. They coordinate brand licensing with partner universities. In 2021, the platform opened the NIL Store, which provides a one-stop solution for student-athletes looking at merchandising. From the copy: "The NIL Store team handles all the creative, product creation, design, marketing, fulfillment and customer service for its student-athletes. Additionally, the NIL Store works directly with student-athletes to educate them on merchandising, marketing and sales trends to develop strategies for optimal success." Seems like a pretty good set up if you ask me. A lot better than picking a custom tee-shirt design store at random on the internet, having no brand license deal, and just hoping you can make some cash by posting the link on social media. 

The NIL Store currently has open stores with major universities including Illinois (Campus Ink was originally founded at Illinois in 1947 before relaunching in 2015; the production facility is still in Urbana), Indiana, Purdue, LSU, Duke, Penn State, Mizzou, Maryland, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, UConn, Iowa State, FSU, Northwestern, and Rutgers. Players that elect to join the platform will have their own "locker" in the store which houses their merchandise.

Walmart's "Custom Basketball Jersey"

If you ask me, this is the type of thing NIL rule changes were originally intended to foster (along with commercials, ad placements, autographs, etc). All of the other collectives and recruitment pools and everything else is a knock on effect of the big business of college athletics, but this stuff gets down to the intent of it all. Student-athletes are people that fans of university teams love and want to support. They want to get their autograph. They want to wear their gear. If you could have gone online and bought a specific Lamar Jackson jersey or tee-shirt knowing he would get the money, wouldn't that have been way better than buying the red #8 no-name Louisville jersey at Walmart? Everyone knew that was just LJ's jersey without a nameplate, but he wasn't allowed to reap the benefits of how popular he was in the area.

For all its warts, that part of NIL is worth it to me. It's just good to see the players that we support and that drive the teams we love getting the opportunity to actually get something for all that adoration, especially for those that don't have the chance at a cushy post-collegiate athletic career like most of the ones we cover here at Cardinal Couple. The next step is to make sure that international players (again, like many of the ones we cover) can also gain the benefit. One thing at a time.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

After having last week off, it's almost a full house for this week's show. It's a return to the studio for the aptly named World-Wide Jeff McAdams as Paulie, Jared, and I fill out the cast. We'll surely have plenty to talk about as we look back on the week that was, look ahead at the week to come, and take all the winding roads of conversation in between. 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

LouiSville's Logo -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL

NOTE:

(There were supposed to be logos in today article but they disappeared into the ozone. I have contacted Daryl and when she responds, they'll be in the write up. These things happen...)    --paulie

Hello again fans!! Its me again. Welcoming you to another weekend and still counting down to kick offs around the Ville.

We’ve spent a lot of time covering the teams and giving some predictions on how we think the seasons might play out. Students and faculty are returning to campus in waves. Move in day is coming up next week… its getting real!! The 2023-24 seasons will be underway in no time and we will be sitting here wondering where the time went.

In the meantime, the powers that be over in the marketing department decided they would get their monies worth of having anyone on staff and are deciding to change the Louisville ‘look’ again. Paulie must've seen some writing on one of the walls when he was down on campus this week because he just said a couple days ago he hoped they wouldn't mess with the logos... 😂😂😂

I'm with you, Paulie, I agree with you on this one.

What's that old saying if it ain't broke, don’t fix it? Idk, this just seems like a waste of time and energy.


See below the slight changes to the font for the Cardinals.






For reference, below is what it looked like before.

Like what is even going on here??! Its quite messy.  I hate that the first L doesn't match the last two and the I's are also have different angles...


I can see it now, the administration running around town swiping all the merch with the old logo off the shelves and imploring Cards fans to buy the new stuff. Its exhausting and hard to keep up with what seems like a font/uniform shake up every 2 years. Will Louisville ever get to the point where they pick a font and stick to it, say like Michigan does with their block letter and Alabama does with the script?


I doubt it but it would be nice.



Have a great weekend.

As always
Go Cards

~Daryl