Cardinal Notebook 8/31

Mark BlankenbakerAugust 31, 2015

BasketballField HockeyFootballVolleyball0 views

Auburn’s Freshman Byron Cowart Is Expected to Play “A LOT”

The nation’s #1 overall recruit from the 2015 class is expected to make his debut vs. the Cards and according to Will Muschamp will play ‘A LOT’. A week ago, Cowart expressed his frustration in camp and mentioned struggling at the defensive end position as a true freshman. We’ll see how the Cards welcome Cowart to college football this weekend.

Bloggin’ Rick Pitino Goes High, Low, and Sad

Coach Pitino has made another entry into his blog on RickPitino.net. He highlights what went well this summer, his distaste for Scotch, his love for Bompy, what has gone well for the Puerto Rican National Team, what hasn’t gone well for Puerto Rico, and some of the hardships the country is facing.

Read the post in its entirety here.

Field Hockey Blanks Indiana 3-0

Sophomore Stephanie Byrne scored a pair of goals to help lift the No. 12 University of Louisville field hockey team to a 3-0 win over Indiana as the Cards won their third straight “Battle of the Border” Sunday afternoon at Trager Stadium. The Cardinals improve to 2-0 on the season while the Hoosiers drop to 1-1.

“We’re happy with the end result, there’s no doubt about that,” said Justine Sowry. “To win against a quality opponent with a new coaching staff, we’re very pleased with the end result. We’re continuing to improve. Some of the pieces that we looked at from Friday night, we addressed them and you can see that we’re trying. You can see that we’re working hard.”

The teams were locked in a midfield battle to start the game before the Cardinals opened the scoring in the 14th minute. Senior Victoria Stratton took possession of the ball near the 50-yardline and drove the ball into the circle where sophomore Stephanie Byrne was waiting to connect on her second goal of the season.

Five minutes later, Louisville capitalized on a penalty corner to increase the lead to 2-0. Senior Katharine-Gwynne Wood got the corner started and Nicole Woods provided the stop to set up senior Elisa Garcia’s shot. Byrne tipped the shot for her second goal of the game.

The Cardinals struck again with just over five minutes remaining in the first half. Junior Lotta Kahlert slotted a cross from the left side of the cage to freshman Tess Hannah who netted her second career goal.

UofL took a 3-0 lead into the break after holding a 5-4 edge in shots with both teams drawing two penalty corners apiece.

The score held in the second half despite Louisville outshooting Indiana 7-2 and holding a 5-2 edge in corners. Freshman goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran collected three saves en route to her first career shutout.

“Indiana had a really good structure in place,” said Sowry. “They were short on numbers, so the way they defended really congested the middle of the pitch, so it changed the way that we had to attack and we didn’t do a very good job in the first half… so we made some adjustments in the second half and we were able to get more opportunities. Give a lot of credit to them, they were very well-structured.”

Louisville will hit the road for the first time this season when the Cards head to the West Coast to face California on Sept. 4 and UC Davis on Sept. 6. NOTES: For the third straight year, the Cardinals have claimed the annual “Battle of the Border” with a 3-0 win.
– Louisville is now 20-1 at Trager Stadium in the past two years.

Cardinal Volleyball Beats Creighton & Miami (OH)

Creighton Recap

Erin Fairs had 21 kills and a block to lead the University of Louisville volleyball team to a five set win over Creighton Saturday afternoon at the Illini Classic in Champaign, Ill.

“That was a great win for us because Creighton is a really good team. They are talented, well-coached and very competitive. It made for a great back and forth match. We needed better production from our pin hitters and we got it and our serving was greatly improved. That shows me they bounced back mentally from the first match with Illinois.”

U of L (1-1) hit .286 with 11 blocks and six aces for the 25-18, 18-25, 25-21, 23-25, 15-11 win. Janelle Jenkins had 15 kills, hitting .429, adding four blocks. Maya McClendon also had double digit kills with 13 adding a pair of blocks. Creighton (1-1) was led by Jess Birds 18 kills.

In the first set, UofL used .565 hitting to hammer at the Blue Jays. Creighton hung around but after tying at 16, the Cards broke free with a four point run to go up 20-17 and then cruised to a 25-18 win. Erin Fairs led with eight kills and Clark added two blocks.

In the second set, Creighton used a 9-2 run late in the second set to go up 20-17 after trailing by as many as six. Cardinal hitting cooled to .162, making it difficult to sustain a comeback. Janelle Jenkins had four kills to lead the Cards.

Creighton led only once in the third set when the used a little run to go up 9-8. UofL responded with a couple of short runs forcing CU to call timeout down 16-12. Fairs got two of her three kills and added a block in the final five points of the set as Cards powered to the 25-21 win.

CU ran out to a 5-3 lead after rifling off four straight and then built slight lead at 7-5 before the Cards tied at ten and then ran off four straight powered by two straight kills by Fairs. The Jays scored once more before Katie George caught them flat-footed on a dump for the win.In the fourth set, two teams were locked in step with neither team taking more than a one point lead until Creighton managed two straight points after being tied at 21 to take a 23-21 lead. Louisville scored on a CU hitting error before Lauren Smith gave the Blue Jays set point. Maggie DeJong tried to kill an overpass but it rolled down the net to fall out of bounds to give CU the 25-23 win and force a fifth set.

Miami OH Recap

Janelle Jenkins had the hot hand with 23 kills and six blocks to lead the University of Louisville to a 3-1 win over Miami of Ohio in the Illini Classic in Champaign, Ill.

UofL improves to 2-1 with the 21-25, 25-18, 26-24, 25-10 win. The Cards hit .279 with 10 blocks and six aces. Erin Fairs joined Jenkins in double digit kills with 12 and added an ace. Maggie DeJong had nine blocks.Katie George had 48 assists and 12 digs for a double-double. Miami was led by Paige Hill’s eight kills and four blocks.

“I thought we got progressively better as the match went on,” said UofL head coach Anne Kordes. “With back to back matches, to stay playing great volleyball for six straight hours is tough and they powered through it. We found a nice right side in Janelle Jenkins, who solidified her spot there. Katie George was just a relentless competitor the entire weekend and we need that from her. Molly Sauer executed so well at libero as well.”

In the first set, after tying at six, Miami went on a 6-0 run to build a lead. The Cards counterpunched and got to within one at 15-14 and then took the lead at 18-17 on four straight kills by Janelle Jenkins. After the Redhawks called timeout, the two teams traded points until MU embarked on a 7-1 run down the stretch for the 25-21 win, with four of those points coming from Cardinal miscues.

The Cards led by as may as five early in the third set but Miami tied at 17 and then took the lead at 21-20. Tied at 23, Miami calls timeout and both teams trade points until Maggie DeJong gets a block for set point and a Miami hitting error by Meredith Stutz gives the Cards the 26-24 win. Jenkins had seven kills in the set.Janelle Jenkins came alive on the right side in the second set, getting seven kills on 10 swings and no errors as the Cards’ hitting percentage rose to a more presentable .250 in the set. The second set was tight with Miami tying at 14 with a four point run. The Cards pushed back to win 25-18.

In the fourth set the Cards popped out to an 8-1 lead and never looked back. Louisville hit .478 and had three blocks in set.

The Cards return to the KFC Yum! Center next Friday for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge featuring Wisconsin and Minnesota who will face off with the Cards and the Tarheels of North Carolina.