By Catherine Laroche
The Cards took care of the Ohio University last Friday night at home with a 2-1 overtime win.
Both teams entered the second half knotted at one after trading goals in the first 30 minutes of play. Louisville freshman forward Lindsay Boling broke the tie in the first minute of overtime for her first collegiate goal, propelling the Cards to a dramatic win to start the regular season.
University of Louisville continued with a season-starting 3-0 win against Miami (Ohio) in Oxford. After a scoreless first half and an hour-long weather delay to begin the second, Louisville’s Jaime Craft, a senior forward, carried the team, having a part in all three Cardinal goals.
The Card’s second season in the Big East looks promising. With last year as the inaugural season in the Big East, the team performed much better than they expected. Last year ended with a 2-1 loss to Marquette in the quarterfinal of the Big East Tournament. Despite the defeat, the team finished the year with an 11-8-0 record, tying the former school record set in 1997 for second most wins in a season.
“I think it was extremely positive being our first year in the Big East coming from Conference USA,” said U of L women’s soccer head coach Karen Ferguson. “We talked about the level being much better than Conference USA, but it’s one thing to talk about it than to play against it. I thought it was a fantastic first year for us.”
The current team is working hard in hopes of having an even better second season in the Big East.
U of L will have to do it without star captain Gina Lower who graduated in the spring.
“Gina Lower was a huge loss,” said Ferguson. “She red shirted one year so she spent five years with us. She played 90 minutes of every game. She was really the liaison on the team between the coaches and the players. She was a fantastic leader; one of the best leaders I’ve ever coached. That’s probably the most important loss we have from last year.”
The Cards have already begun to fill the hole that Lower left. Ferguson believes that senior defender Amy Seng and sophomore defender Jessica Mello are capable of replacing Lowerís position.
“We have been able to do well with them,” said Ferguson. “They have been tremendous already. Jessica Mello is doing very well. She’s a little nicked up with an ankle sprain, but that’s not going to inhibit her at all.”
While Seng and Mello are already filling big shoes, Ferguson expects Seng and the rest of her seniors to step up in their last season as Cardinals.
“I think all seniors step up their senior year,” said Ferguson. “There’s a sense of urgency. A sense of ‘I don’t have another year to get this done, so it’s got to be now.’ I think Jamie Craft is doing great. Amy Seng is fantastic. Heather [Engel] is a senior and has done very well. I think we are in very good hands with those seniors as leaders.”
Craft says she will do everything she can to step up this season.
“For me, it’s my last year so I’m going to put out everything and just give my all, because I don’t have another year to play,” said Craft. “What we do in practice is what we’ll do in games, so if we work hard, everything should go well.”
Ferguson is hoping that all the senior leadership on the U of L team will greatly help in accomplishing the team’s goals for this season, citing their biggest focus as getting to the NCAA Tournament.
The Cardinals are already off to a great start, with come-from-behind victories in each of their exhibition games against #18 West Virginia and Nebraska.
