Monday Cardinal Couple -- Lacrosse wins at Drexel

MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


 TOURNAMENT NEWS:  Louisville WBB is a #5 seed in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament and will face #12 seed Middle Tennessee on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the KFC YUM! Center. The other teams headed to Louisville are #4 seed Purdue and #13 seed Liberty. Jenny O'Bryan will have much more on this in the TUESDAY Edition of CARDINAL COUPLE. Get your tickets!


-Lacrosse goes to 7-1 with 9-8 win at Drexel

-Rowing gets four wins at Oak Ridge Cardinal Invitational

-Soggy softball stats

-Selection show tonight at KFC YUM! Center for Lady Cards

The University of Louisville lacrosse team once again overcame the elements and a worthy opponent with a 9-8 win over Drexel in Philadelphia Sunday.

The Cards started strong with freshman Kay Morissette scoring the first three goals of the game in the first eight minutes of play...a "hat trick" in hockey terms...to give the Cards a nice early advantage. The Dragons were not going to let Louisville dominate them on their home turf, however, and responded with three straight scores to knot the contest.

Monica Negron and Katie Oliverio returned the favor for UofL to give the Cards a 5-3 advantage with ten minutes left in the first half. Drexel roared back with three in a row to take a 6-5 advantage into the end of the first half.

Morissette found the back of the net six minutes into the second half to tie the contest and just 34 seconds later...fellow freshman Erica Eipp connected to give Louisville a 7-6 lead. Drexel countered with a score to tie it at the 22:18 mark.

Morissette had four goals for the Cards in the win.

Eipp broke free to regain the lead for Louisville and Colleen O' Malley added a goal with 10:39 left that had Louisville leading 9-7. The Dragons scored their final goal to draw within one with 7:10 showing on the clock. Solid ball control by the Cards prevented any Drexel scoring opportunities the rest of the way.

Freshmen Eipp and Morissette accounted for seven of the nine Louisville scores. The Cards held a 23-12 advantage on shots.

At 7-1, this is the best start in Louisville Lacrosse history and ties the best eight game stretch in Cardinal history also. The 2011 squad had a 7-1 stretch also.

Louisville returns to the road for a BIG EAST conference match for a 6 p.m. tussle against #11 Loyola (MD) on Friday, March 22nd. 

( Jeff McAdams has written a moving article about the tragic Seton Hill lacrosse deaths and posted a link to it in our Sunday comments sections. Please take the time to read it. Our hearts go out to the Seton Hill Lacrosse community and fans over this tragic and saddening loss of three lives.)

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Louisville rowing has started the spring season and kicked it off with the Oak Ridge Cardinal Invitational on Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, TN. The two day event capped a week long spring-training for the team and saw Louisville compete against Virginia and West Virginia on Saturday morning, Duke and Eastern Michigan Saturday afternoon and Notre Dame, Kansas, Buffalo and Miami (FL) on Sunday.

Virginia is the 2012 NCAA Champs and Notre Dame won the BIG EAST championships in 2012.

The Cards won four races in the Saturday afternoon sessions. Duke won the other two. 

Louisville had five seconds in six events Saturday morning. Although the Cards did not beat Virginia in any of the morning events, they did beat West Virginia in all six.

On Sunday, the girls had four runner-up finishes in six events. Notre Dame won four events and Kansas the other two.

The Cards will return to Melton Hill on Saturday, March 30th to face Tennessee.

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Even though Louisville Softball got rained out Sunday and it's not looking promising for today...we managed to get some statistics for you on the Cardinals season so far. Louisville is 23-3 on the season and 11-0 in Ulmer Stadium.

BATTING

Batting Average                Hits                 RBI's

1. Katie Keller .476       1. Keller 35         1. Keller 27
2. Alicja Wolny . 444     2. Wolny 32         2. Ruckenbrod 25
3. Maggie R. .408          3. Maggie R. 31    3. Wolny 21


Runs Scored                      Home Runs       Walks

1. Keller 35                   1. Keller 7           1. Wolny 19
2. Wolny 22                   2. Wolny 6           2. Keller 16
3. Jordan Trimble 20     3. Maggie R. 4      3. (four with 8)


PITCHING

                        ERA    W/L   Games   Starts   BB   Strikeouts

Rachel LeCoq     1.07   9-1        16        11       11      42
Caralisa Connell 2.02   14-2      20        15       46     101
Smithson-Willet 99.00  0-0         1          0        0        0

Louisville is batting .344 on the season while holding opponents to .216 and has hit 24 home runs.

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Join Cardinal fans and the team tonight at the KFC YUM! Center for the NCAA Selection Show Viewing party. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show begins at 7 p.m. Bouncies for the kids and face painting also!

Coach Jeff Walz will do his weekly radio show with Matt Andrews there as well...beginning at 7 p.m.

Should be a fun family-oriented event tonight. Several CARDINAL COUPLE columnists will be there as well and Jenny O'Bryan...back in Louisville after failing to make the Indiana Fever WNBA team...will have coverage in the Tuesday edition of CARDINAL COUPLE. 

Jeff and Jenny will attempt to keep track of Paulie
as he roams the KFC YUM! Center with a recording devicei...
the odds are he gives them the slip and ends up in trouble.

We'll also be roaming the stands and court to get fan and (hopefully) player and coaching reactions that we'll play on the Saturday radio show.  

This event has come a long way from the days when it took place in the Parrish House. Where will Louisville be seeded and who will be the opponents headed to Louisville for the 1st and 2nd rounds of action?

If you can't attend, the Selection Show will be on ESPN at 7 p.m. this evening.

Also, congrats to the UofL men's basketball team...a #1 seed, headed to Lexington for Thursday opening NCAA Action and the #1 see out of all 68 teams! Way to go, guys!

Paulie

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