Saturday Cardinal Couple --Volleyball, Softball register wins

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SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Volleyball downs USF 3-1 in Tampa

-Softball sweeps doubleheader

-Soccer falls on road to Marquette

Lola's 26 kills power Volleyball to win over USF

The University of Louisville Volleyball team improved to 13-2 with a hard-fought 20-25, 25-18, 25-21, 25-23 win over the University of South Florida yesterday evening in Tampa. Lola Arslanbekova led the way with 26 kills in the Cardinal victory and outside hitter Tanya Lukyanenko added a career high 14 slams in the 3-1 defeat of USF.

Louisville fell behind early in the first contest 12-7 and could not rally to catch the Bulls...dropping the first game of the match by five. Were the Cards a little nervous and unsure of themselves on the road against a quality opponent? 

If they were, their fears and insecurities soon dissipated...UofL gaining a 10-9 lead on USF in the second game, stretching it out to 22-18 and winning going away by seven. 

After the break, Louisville grabbed an early lead in game three and led 15-10 midway through the contest. USF rallied for five straight points though and made this one interesting until the Cards responded with four straight scores to go up 19-15 and hold that advantage for a four-point third game victory.

In the final game, the Cards led most of the way...with advantages of 13-9 and 20-17 before the Bulls tied the battle at 23-23. A Lukyanenko kill and USF error provided the final points UofL needed to take the game and match.

Softball takes two with wins over Bellarmine and EKU

Sandy Pearsall's softball squad got the fall pre-season off to a huge start by blasting Bellarmine 10-0 at Ulmer Stadium and squeaking out a close 1-0 victory over EKU in the nightcap.

A seven hit, six run  second inning proved to be all Louisville needed to down the Knights. Caralisa Connell pitched three innings to get the win and Rachel Le Coq fired the final three to preserve the shutout.

The nightcap was a pitchers duel until the bottom of the seventh. Maggie Ruckenbrod reached on a single for the Cards and pinch-runner Chrisanna Roberts scored on Whitney Arion's double an out later to give Louisville the victory. Connell got the win with four strong innings and Le Coq pitched the first three of shutout ball for Louisville.

Soccer falls 2-0 to Marquette in Milwaukee

Lack of offensive production spelled defeat for Karen Ferguson-Dayes soccer tribe yesterday in BIG EAST action.

Louisville surrendered two late second half goals in the loss to the Golden Eagles. The Cards fall to 7-3-1 overall and 2-2-1 in conference play.

Chloe Kiefer recorded eight saves in the loss. The Cards travel to Tampa on Sunday to face the USF Bulls.
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Volleyball vs MTSU, UNLV, and Miami (Fla.)

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SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE PRESENTS:

(Columnist JEFF McADAMS takes us through the Fri-Sat UofL Volleyball matches with his 

always excellent observations, analysis and comments!) 

Chalk up 3 W's for the Kordes Krew

It wasn't always pretty, and there was some epic come-from-behind play going on...and I'm not talking about football.

MTSU

Middle Tennessee State University is a school that has frequently given the Volleyball Cards challenges.  Eliminating UofL in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 2007, and giving them a bit of a scare in the first round of 2010.  They're a pesky team, that can be counted on to give solid play.

In the first set, MTSU again gave the Cards a bit of scare, with MTSU leading most of the way.  After coming off two big wins last weekend, I suspect there may have been of big game let down, again.  Much like the let down after the Kentucky match, however, it lasted less than a set...if that's how this team is going to react to post-big-game-let-downs, that's not bad.

The second set was never much of a contest, and the third looked to be much the same.  The Blue Raiders made a run at a comeback, but then a bunch of errors derailed their efforts.

The setting pair of Hannah Kvitle and Katie George...still splitting the second hit duties...spread the offense around quite a bit, but the most success and momentum building happened up the middle with Brooke Mattingly, and Tanya Lukyanenko.  Tanya was back in the middle position to fill in for Gwen Rucker, who was on the bench all weekend, but not dressed out, due to illness.  With Tanya playing in the middle the fans had more opportunity to appreciate the play of Carly Sahagian, a transfer from the University of Tennessee.  Carly hit a mistake free 6 of 14, for .429 which put her third in percentage behind the .462 numbers of Brooke and Tanya...that's ignoring Katie George's single successful attempt that gives her a statistical 1.000, but isn't really fair to compare with hitters taking upwards of 10 swings a match.

UNLV

Keep your eyes on this team.  While I don't expect them to be back at the KFC Yum! Center for the national championship December 13th and 15th, I think a lot of people are underrating their play, as I think the VolleyCards did coming into this match.

I would say that the Cardinals weren't really fully awake for this 11am start-time, but the Rebels were effectively functioning on an 8am start time, so that excuse doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

With only .109 hitting in the first set, and no blocks...Gwen's presence was really missed there...the first set looked really rough for UofL.  It ended up being a tight game with the Rebs taking it 23-25.

The second set was only marginally better.  Kaitlynn James started to come alive with several successful attacks that blunted the UNLV momentum and helped UofL scratch out a win in the second set...taking an extra point to get there...at 26-24.

Anne Kordes was clearly unhappy with her team's play heading into the break...I wonder if they had to repaint the locker room walls as I imagine she blasted her players for their poor play in the first two sets.  Whatever she said, and however she said it, the team responded.  With .560 hitting in the set and 4 blocks, this looked more like the team that played Purdue and Illinois last weekend.  Winning the set 25-6, I imagine UNLV wishes they could forget this one.

Credit UNLV with digging deep and making the 4th set a contest.  They responded to the withering attack of the third set and stepped up their play.  Both teams had big runs, first the Rebels, then the Cardinals, but after being chastised during the set break, UofL continued playing well and was able to put the match away.

Miami

The marquee matchup of the Louisville Invitational was Louisville vs Miami.  Miami, technically unranked, is getting votes in the coaches poll for an effective 26th.  This isn't a team to be trifled with.  Kaitlynn James continued to play well after the afternoon match...really a great day for her overall.  The most efficient play, though, came from Brooke Mattingly...who I'm going to start calling "Stomp" because after she makes a great play, she stomps on the floor and cheers...really a honest, heartfelt expression of excitement that her teammates, and the fans, really feed on.  "Stomp" hit an phenomenal .714 and helped out in a couple of blocks.

In the first set, Miami got out to a solid lead.  At 22-15 the crowd largely thought the set was over and were thinking about how to respond in the second set.  Kaitlynn, Lola, and Tanya thought otherwise as, starting with Kaitlynn's serving, Lola and Tanya killed and blocked their way to a 7 point run.

Good solid play in the second set got Louisville to a solid match lead.  It looked like the Cards were going to have another good sweep of a good team.

The third set, however, went to the Hurricanes powered by a 9-0 run.  Louisville dug down deep and started to make a comeback, but ran out of time.

Solid play across the board in the 4th set netted UofL the match and tournament win.

Takeaways

I think there are a couple of UofL teams that I'm glad I'm not going to be in their practice sessions this week.  While both UofL Football and Volleyball came away with wins, there's plenty to praise and critique in the play of both teams this weekend.  Both teams also came away with unblemished records for the weekend, but I suspect practices will be grueling dissections of what went wrong at times.

I'll leave the analysis of Football to those who know more about it, but for Volleyball, we've got good and bad.

The good is that we saw what this team can do when they meet adversity.  They dug down and gritted out some wins even when things weren't going their way and they weren't executing well.  To be able to dig down and turn their play around within a match like they did several times this weekend speaks well of the team's ability to tap into reserves of discipline and pull themselves together.  We saw that happen this weekend during set breaks, timeouts, and even just between plays.

The bad, of course, is that they played in such a way to begin with that they found themselves in situations where they had to tap those discipline reserves.  It would be great if all of their matches just went well enough that they wouldn't need to turn their play around.  Of course, eventually a team will be tested, so its good to know that they have it in them to make the comebacks in tough situations.

Up Next

The Cards start their conference slate, starting Friday at 7pm with DePaul, followed by Notre Dame on Sunday at 2pm, both at the KFC Yum! Center.  Come check them out.

Sunday Cardinal Couple -- Volleyball, Field Hockey win

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SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- Volleyball dispatches of Samford in evening session

-Field Hockey waits out rain delay, wins 3-2 over Davidson

-Annual gridiron clash may have to dodge a few puddles

Louisville Volleyball followed their morning win over Marshall win a Saturday evening triumph over Samford in the KFC YUM! Center in four games...winning 25-22, 25-16, 22-25, 25-15. 

A sluggish start for the Cards to open the match, falling behind 5-1 early and trailing by scores of 7-3, 12-7 and 14-10 in the first game before mounting a rally that tied it at 15-15 on a block from Tanya Lukyanenko. The Cards were still deadlocked with Samford at 20-20 and proceeded to lose two of the next three volleys before scoring the final four points of the game on a kill from Kaitlynn James and blocks from Gwen Rucker and Lukyanenko. 

Louisville came out much more aggressively in the second game and jumped out to a 4-1 lead after a kill from Lola Arslanbekova. A brief Samford rally pulled them to within one at 8-7, but after that...the Cards steadily pulled away and led 15-12 after a Samford service error. Louisville went on a 9-2 run after that to lead 24-14 following a kill from Carly Sahagian and ended the match with another kill from Sahagian to win 25-16.

After the halftime break, Samford showed they had some fight left in them by playing the Cards close throughout all of game three...neither team able to gain an advantage of more than three points and Louisville found itself holding a 22-21 late in the action. Samford got four straight points, though on two kills from Katie Murphy and then two from Elizabeth Neisler to win game three 25-22.  

The Cards got the wake-up call and jumped out early in the final game. Lukyanenko's kill made it 5-1 Louisville. Kaitlynn James made it 10-5 with a kill. Lola got in the action with a kill to make it 15-8 Cards. It was 20-13 after a Sahagian kill and another from Lukyanenko had Louisville ahead 24-14. Lola put the Bulldogs out of their misery with a kill that ended the game at 25-15. 

Lola led the Cards with 22 kills. She was also named MVP of the tournament and made the all-tournament team along with Gwen Rucker and Brooke Mattingly for the Cards. 


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Field Hockey beat Davidson 3-2 and also outlasted the weather that caused nearly a two-hour delay in the Saturday afternoon game at Trager Stadium. Lightning and heavy downpours stopped the match with the Cards up 3-2 with about 17 minutes left in the game. 

The Wildcats scored first but the Cards responded quickly with goals from Mallory Mason and Erin Schneidtmiller in a four-minute stretch to regain the lead at 2-1. That's the way the first half ended...the Cards holding an 8-4 shot advantage. 

Becca Maddock pushed the Cards ahead 3-1 when she scored about eight minutes into the second half. A couple of minutes after the Wildcats cut the lead to 3-2, the skies opened and the flash of lightning sent both team to the sidelines.

After play resumed, Davidson and the Cards battled scoreless the rest of the way. 

"It wasn't a pretty one, that's for sure. The delay in the game made for a very long day under difficult conditions. We got a win and that's a great thing, but a lot of lessons need to be taken away from this game. Davidson didn't allow us to play the game we wanted to. Some positives to take away were definitely our attack play - that was an area we really wanted to work on. We generated some pretty good scoring opportunities but overall we do need to take a lot of lessons from today and continue to grow and move forward." -- Louisville field hockey head coach Justine Sowry. 

The Cards (2-1) return to action Monday when they play Ball State at 2 p.m.

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Finally, the Battle for the Bluegrass takes place in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. when Louisville and Kentucky put on the helmets and duke it out in front of 57,000+ rabid fans in football. 

You've seen the staff picks. Our informal poll revealed that 70% of you think UofL will win by 10 points or more. Louisville picked preseason to win the BIG EAST, UK picked to secure the basement in the SEC East Division. The chance of stormy weather and soggy conditions for these young men as Red and Blue clash in front of a sold out stadium and national television audience. Ponchos as important as tailgate food today, it appears. 

CARDINAL COUPLE will be there, but not in reporting or game coverage mode. May the best team win. If you go, remember to be "good" Cardinal (or Cat) fans and act responsibly. Be gracious in victory and complimentary in defeat. The eyes of the nation are watching, don't act like idiots. Cheer heartily for your team but don't be an obnoxious loudmouth. Enjoy the game and allow others around you to do the same.  

And, GO CARDS!      
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