Cardinal Couple: The Week that Was...
The Cardinal Couple's weekly update on UofL women's athletics features updates on Anne Kordes' volleyball team, Cardinal women's soccer, a new women's basketball schedule and a conference update.
WOMEN'S SOCCER
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Women's Soccer split their season opening weekend. With a 2-0 victory over Butler Friday, and a 5-4 overtime loss to Illinois Sunday afternoon.
Illinois is a good team, ranked - depending upon which poll you look at... and when - somewhere from 17th to 25th to "also getting votes".
Illinois scores 4 minutes into the first overtime to win the game, final score was 5-4- UofL Women's Soccer (@ulwomenssoccer) August 25, 2013
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
The new 2013-14 schedule was released Wednesday night. The schedule features home games against national champion UConn, Florida State, Colorado, Cincinnati and Rutgers, and road games against UConn, Kentucky and Western Kentucky.
FIELD HOCKEY
The Louisville Field Hockey team played a preseason scrimmage Saturday afternoon in Bloomington vs IU. The teams played two 25 minutes sessions, a 20 minute session, and 10 minute overtime session, then the teams did two shootouts, with the first being a best of five and the other being a "sudden victory".
Even if the scrimmage were to reflect the actual playing time of a game, scoring would only be marginally related to expected results during regular season games due to the teams substituting more players in and out during scrimmages to get a chance to see different players in action against an outside opponent. That having been said, the stated result of the scrimmage was a 4-4 tie. UofL took the regular play periods with a 4-3 victory.
The 10 minute overtime session saw an IU goal to tie the overall score at 4-4. UofL took the best of five shootout on a 3-2 margin, while IU claimed the "sudden victory" shootout on their first shot, preserving a notional tie.
VOLLEYBALL
The Volleyball squad also played a scrimmage game, in this case a mostly intra-squad scrimmage. Anne Kordes' team "won" over Alex Wilharm's team two sets to one.
Again, scoring for an event of this nature is a bit nebulous as players switched back and forth between the two teams several times during the event. And with Alex and another (male) practice player playing on Alex's team, the idea of scoring just doesn't mean a great deal
for this event. This was a good opportunity for a crowd of several hundred UofL Volleyball fans to see the 2013 squad, and learn the names and faces of some of the new players. More importantly, it gave the team a chance to play in front of a crowd in a more realistic atmosphere for playing matches.
The evening also doubled as an opportunity to honor a number of UofL Volleyball Alumnae that were in attendance.
THE WEEK THAT WILL BE
Soccer: This weekend sees Karen Ferguson-Dayes' team playing in Winston-Salem, NC, at The Wake Forest Invitational hosted by, shockingly enough, Wake Forest. This event will see the UofL squad playing a late afternoon/early evening Friday game against future ACC conference foe Virginia Tech. First kick is at 4 p.m. We'll also get to size up another future ACC conference opponent by playing against host Wake Forest in a Sunday game at 2pm.
Free trip to Lexington to support @ulwomenssoccer #BeatKentucky #LexingtonIsForTheBirds pic.twitter.com/x41S79G7L9— Elle Raiser (@ElleRaiser) August 28, 2013
Field Hockey: Field Hockey, coached by Justine Sowry, gets their regular season under way with a Friday evening game at future ACC conference foe Virginia starting at 6pm. They follow that up with a noon start on Sunday down the road taking on the Richmond Spiders.
Volleyball: The Volleyball team will also be getting their regular season under way this weekend, and starting off with some of the most challenging opponents of their season at the Penn State Invitational in State College, Penn. First serve happens Friday at 4pm against past and future, but not current, conference foe Syracuse. Syracuse is coached by former Louisville coach Leonid Yelin. UofL Volleyball fans may also remember one of the assistant coaches, Lana (Svetlana) Dukule, from her playing days here with the Cardinals.
Saturday evening, with a 7:30pm first serve, sees the Cardinals take on the #2 team in the country in Penn State. The story of the night will be the matchup between Penn State senior Deja McClendon and her little
sister, Louisville freshman Maya McClendon. Those looking for some sister-on-sister spikes (or blocks) may end up disappointed, however.
Both Maya and Deja are primarily left-side hitters, so they'll probably spend most of the match on opposite ends of the net.
Cross Country: Cross Country is also a fall sport and gets underway Saturday with the Mid-America Opener in Evansville, IN. The event starts at noon.
TWO QUICK CONFERENCE NOTES
While most sports at UofL will be playing in The American (AAC) conference this year, a few, including Field Hockey, will still be participating in The Big East.
Volleyball will be playing in The AAC, but there will be no conference tournament for volleyball. The regular season champion will get the NCAA tournament automatic qualifying bid.
OH, AND ONE MORE THING...
We hear there's a football game on Sunday, too. If you have time between all of these events, you might want to check in on that as well.
Jeff McAdams is a writer for CardinalCouple.com, a fan blog devoted to the joy and excitement of UofL Women's Athletics. By day, Jeff is a mostly mild-mannered computer Network Engineer. He started writing for The Cardinal Couple in the fall of 2012, with a particular emphasis on Volleyball coverage. In addition to writing, Jeff is a co-host of The Cardinal Couple Radio show on Saturdays at 11 a.m. on crescenthillradio.com