By Randy Burns
After starting the season with a win over American University on Friday night, the Lady Cards pounded out a win over Texas-Arlington on Saturday afternoon at Cardinal Arena. Early on, the outcome did not look good for Louisville. The Mavericks quickly started off the match with winning scores of 30-23 and 30-28 in the first two games. That’s when the seniors put their foot down and started a rally.
In the first game, the Cards looked uncoordinated as numerous miscommunications led to a run of Maverick points. The final score read 30-23 but in reality the game was never really that close. Louisville ended the game with a miserable .086 attack percentage compared to UT-Arlington’s .325. Mental mistakes abounded as players did not cover for each other, created errors and generally looked very sloppy.
In the second game the Cards appeared to have regained some of their sharpness coming away with a .342 attack percentage compared to UT’s .208 but U of L still fell 30-28.
Coming back from the break things quickly looked bleak for Louisville as the Mavericks jumped out to a 8-1 lead. From that point on the Cards held pace with UT but could not gain any ground. Louisville freshman Jennifer Craven had the serve with her team down 29-21 and UT needing one point to win the match. After watching the level of U of L’s play all afternoon, no one in Cardinal Arena expected the competition to last much longer. That is, no one but the Louisville players on the floor. After an embarrassing display all afternoon the Cards could have easily packed it in to rest up for their match against No. 6 Arizona later in the evening. But at that point Louisville suddenly seemed to find themselves and began a rally.
“I didn’t see our younger players panic or give up,” said Head Coach Leonid Yelin. “There may have been a lack of execution but not lack of effort.” Amazingly, after giving up point after point all day, Louisville held solid and closed out the third game by scoring the final 10 points for the win.
With their confidence regained, the Cards played strong in the third game and wore down the Mavericks for a 30-26 win to send the match into a tie-break. In the deciding short game Louisville was on fire coming away with 11 kills on 22 attacks and just two errors for a .409 hitting percentage.
The winning scores by the Cards were mainly due to the fact that they hammered down more kills than Texas-Arlington in the last three games of the match (22-14, 21-13, 11-8). Senior Sonja Percan led the attack in the fifth game and finished the match with 26 kills while Craven had 66 assists. On the defensive end, senior Sara Drury contributed 23 digs, and senior Stacey Mercer added 5 blocks.
“The three seniors on the court just stepped up and bumped everybody up,” said Percan. The seniors took charge by telling their teammates to feel excited about each point the team made. Percan also said that Bing Sun got her hitting back. Sun proved just that with 15 kills in the match. Junior
Despite taking a shot which gave her a bloody nose in the fourth game, Benny Flynn returned to action and helped the team by adding 14 kills and 5 blocks. And, despite only having 3 kills in the match, freshman Jennifer Craven had 4 blocks and also set up the other attackers with a team high 66 assists. In the end,
Louisville overmatched Texas-Arlington .409 to .250 on team attack percentage.With this win, the Lady Cards move to 2-0 on the season while the feisty Mavericks stumble to an 0-2 start. “I am positive about our remaining schedule,” said Percan. “I think we will be in the conference championship game again.”
