Field Hockey Falls in Overtime to Ohio State

CARDINAL COUPLE THURSDAY REPORT

Field Hockey defeated by OSU 4-3

Kentucky visits tonight in women's soccer

Cheerleading...as a sport?

The University of Louisville Field Hockey team dropped a double overtime match to #12 Ohio State last night at Trager Stadium 4-3. Louisville started out strong with a ball control, driving goal from Hayley Turner but saw OSU tie the match minutes later when the Buckeyes capitalized on a penalty corner shot by Jena Cacciatore past Cards goalie Erin Conrad.

The team took the 1-1 tie into halftime. Louisville was outshooting the Buckeyes in the first stanza and it seemed only a matter of time before the Cards would break away. OSU, though, drew first blood in early in the second half on another corner score. The Cards got a corner score to tie the match when Nikki Auker smacked a rebound shot off OSU goalie Ally Tunitis halfway thru the second stanza. OSU responded quickly a couple of minutes later to regain the lead with a third penalty corner score and it took a late goal by Tuli Lim to deadlock the match.

Neither team found the net in the first overtime, despite strong offense from the Cards, who had three corner opportunities but couldn't capitalize. OSU was granted a corner attempt with a minute remaining in the first overtime but Conrad successfully stopped a Cacciatore shot to force the second sudden death.

Unfortunately, just a minute into the extra period...Berta Queralt took a midfield pass and smashed a long attempt into the back of the Cardinal net for the win.

UofL (3-2) hosts California next at 1 p.m. on Sunday. A tough loss in front of a good crowd last night for the Cards.

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Another "Battle of the Bluegrass" tonight..this time in women's soccer...when UK visits Cardinal Park to do battle with the Cards. #18 Louisville is 4-0 on the season, coming off a 4-1 win over Toledo last Friday. Kentucky enters the game unranked at 3-1...losing to Wake Forest in their last outing.

The Cats lead the overall series 8-4-1 and took a 1-0 victory over Louisville last year in Lexington. The game will be televised on the Fox Soccer Channel and action begins at 7 p.m. It's a "red out" game...Cardinal fans are asked to wear red (as if we'd wear anything else?) to the nationally televised event.

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WE enjoy watching our Cardinal cheerleaders in action at all sporting events and we're fortunate to have an up close view of them in the CRUNCH ZONE during football games. If USA CHEER has its way...cheerleading will be the next Title IX sport on college campuses. Competitive cheerleading is in their plans..in an effort to get competitions recognized by the NCAA. The sport would be named "stunt" and team acrobatics and tumbling would be part of the competition. They also want to make sure that the activities do not come at the expense of regular cheerleading. UofL's Todd Sharp's cheerleading squads seem to win the non-NCAA sponsored national cheerleading championship competitions every year..maybe it would be nice if they could also claim an NCAA Championship title trophy to stick in the UofL trophy cases.

We just have one question...if cheerleading becomes a sport, who will lead cheers for the cheerleaders? Maybe Coach Dan can get those baseball Cards out there to wave the pom poms...or Vic Anderson, Brandon Heath and the Cards' football guys can build pyramids and grab the megaphones...Personally, we'd pay admission to see Pitino lead Knowles, Siva, Jennings and Kuric in backflips and cartwheels on the sidelines...but we're not so sure we want to see these guys in cheerleading skirts...