Lady Cards win on road against Villanova

Monique Reid's 20 lead Lady Cards to 64-48 win.

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The University of Louisville women's basketball team wins an important BIG EAST road game at Villanova on Super Bowl Sunday...defeating the Wildcats by 16. Louisville never trailed in the contest..rolling out to an 11-2 lead early. Louisville led 15-5 after two Nita Slaughter free throws at the 9:50 mark..but saw 'Nova rally with an 8-1 run to make it 16-15 Cards with 7:32 left after a Lindsay Kimmel three. Louisville responded with a 12-0 run, though, and led 28-15 after an Asia Taylor steal and layup with 5:35 remaining. The Cards went in at halftime up 34-19 when Monique Reid got a putback as time expired in the first half.

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Reid led the Cards with 1o first half and Shoni Schimmel added seven points for the Cards. Louisville out-rebounded the Wildcats 22-11 in the first half.

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Louisville scored the first two baskets in the second half and led by 19. The battled evenly back and forth after that until Louisville used a 10-3 run to go up 57-34 on a Sherrone Vails 3 pointer with 10:32 to go. Villanova outscored the Cards 14-7 the rest of the way but could get no closer that 14 points at 62-48 after a Laura Sweeney jumper with 2:15 remaining. Asia Taylor closed out the scoring in the game with a jumper at at 1:15 mark.

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Reid led all scorers with 20 points and Schimmel ended with double figures also with 10 points.

Tia Gibbs contributed nine. Taylor, who got the start over Becky Burke this afternoon added eight and Burke tossed in six. Charmaine Tay, Keisha Hines and Sherrone Vails had three each for the Lady Cards and Nita Slaughter ended up with two.

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Louisville goes to 6-4 in the BIG EAST with the win and gets a week off before West Virginia comes to town next Sunday.

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Louisville head coach Jeff Walz was pleased with the road win but was unhappy with the way Louisville turned the ball over late after building a 23 point lead.

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"We got careless late and had too many blown opportunities...but I thought it was a nice road win for us."he remarked after the game

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Walz on starting Asia Taylor this afternoon instead of Becky Burke:

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"We need to become better defensively. So I started Asia because she plays better defense. I thought she did a really great job for us and Becky was fine coming off the bench.

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Walz on unforced turnovers:

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"You gotta value the ball on every possession and we didn't do that during certain times in today's game."

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Shelby Harper was available for duty today after missing three games with a sprained ankle. She did not see any action, though.

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It was announced pre-game that Shawnta Dyer will be red shirted this year and will have four years of eligibility left.

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