Weekend Recap

Section 111: Weekend Campus Recap

In an effort to be an outlet for some of the sports that don’t always make front page news around Louisville, Section 111 will bring you weekend recaps that will feature a look around the busy schedule of Louisville athletics. Basically, Men’s Basketball and Football will be excluded here to give the rest of Louisville’s outstanding athletes a platform.

An exciting spring is already underway for all of the varsity sports at UofL, and you’ll get some insight on them here on most Mondays. Without further a do, lets get it started.

Women’s Basketball

Coming off of a tough loss to South Florida last week, the 12^th-ranked Lady Cards rebounded on the road when they beat Villanova 55-49 on Sunday afternoon. Sophomore Bria Smith paced the Cards’ scoring with 16.

Bracketology check: ESPN’s Charlie Creme has Louisville as a #4 seed in his latest outlook. Projected opponent? Quinnipiac. Projected site for the game? The KFC Yum! Center. That would be a beautiful thing.

Jeff Walz’s squad plays their final home game of the season this Wednesday when they host Seton Hall at 7 PM downtown. March Madness is approaching, folks.

Lacrosse

Make it 3-0 for Louisville Lacrosse, who shellacked Old Dominion at the Lacrosse Stadium on Saturday. Kaylin Morissette led the Cards with five goals, which is basically a way more awesome version of a hat trick. Other Cards who scored multiple goals were Nikki Boltja (4, a slightly less-awesome hat trick), Cortnee Daley (3, nothing wrong with sticking to tradition), Colleen O’Malley (2), and Faye Brust (2).

You can’t score without assists. Freshman Erika Eipp understands this, which is why she dropped five of them.

Next up for the undefeated Cardinals is a trip west to face Denver next Saturday, March 2^nd.  Thin air? Don’t care. Good luck to the ladies out in the mountains.

Finally, Janaye Dzikewich, Kaylin Morissette, and Crysti Foote were all named to the Canadian National Team to compete at the 2013 Women’s Lacrosse World Cup.  If necessary, I know “Oh, Canada” in its entirety and am not afraid to belt it out. Congratulations to the newest members of Team Canada.

Softball

18^th-ranked Louisville Softball completed a weekend sweep of the Cardinal Classic at Ulmer Stadium, beating Kent State (twice), Buffalo, and Eastern Illinois by a combined score of 22-5.

Junior pitcher Caralisa Connell struck out eight en route to a one-hit shutout in the Cards’ home opener on Friday against Kent State, and also picked up wins in Saturday’s win over Buffalo and Sunday’s wins over Kent State and Eastern Illinois. This means two things. Connell’s arm is indestructible, and she’s also untouchable. I think this bodes well for the future.

Softball will also hit the road next weekend and will face Texas and Temple on Friday, March 1^st in the Citrus Classic. They will also face Longwood, Georgia Tech, and LSU on the weekend.

Baseball

The 4^th-ranked Baseball Cards swept a 3-game series with Akron this weekend by a total of 17-1, moving them to 6-1 on the season. It wasn’t really even fair until Sunday.

Winning pitchers on the weekend were Chad Green, Jeff Thompson, and Anthony Kidston. All were starters in their respective games besides Kidston, who came on in the 6^th inning on Sunday to relieve starter Jared Ruxer and tossed 2.1 innings of perfection to earn the win in the Cards’ close 2-1 victory over the Zips.

Next, the Cardinals host Morehead State before opening up a weekend series with Kent State, who went to last year’s College World Series. That edition of MACtion should make for an exiting weekend at Jim Patterson Stadium.

I was fortunate enough to be at some of Friday’s game and all of Sunday’s game. Two observations from Sunday: Kidston’s changeup is one of the nastiest I have ever watched in person, and Nick Burdi is an electrifying arm out of the Louisville bullpen. Burdi came on in the ninth to close out the ballgame, and promptly gassed it up to 100 mph for his first three pitches of the inning before striking out the side on 11 pitches. It really was a treat to watch. Closing is an art.

Other cool things about Burdi include: his warm-up routine of chucking one to the back screen prior to warming up like normal (but far less cool) pitchers do, one of his favorite movies is The Hangover, and one of his favorite TV shows is The Office. All good choices. No, I didn’t nag him for these details like one of “those fans”. They’re publicly available on his profile on GoCards.com.

Stay tuned throughout the week for more input on DePaul day, more baseball action, and more potentially useless general commentary from Section 111. Go Cards.