By Elizabeth Scanland

Louisville lost on the road to the Virginia Tech Hokies.

The loss snapped Louisville’s winning streak at seven games.

Punched in the face

Virginia Tech got on the board first with two made free throws but Louisville quickly punched back with a jump shot made by Nyla Harris.

The Hokies then respond with the next three baskets, each from a different player, bringing the score to 4-12.

Towards the end of the first quarter, the Cards got sloppy on both sides of the ball creating easy points for VT, forcing a Louisville timeout. Out of the timeout, Louisville created an 8-0 run, significantly closing a major gap.

The Cards trailed 14-17 to end the first.

Louisville started the second quarter nicely, with Tajianna Roberts drawing a foul and converting on her two free throws.

After this, however, scoring went quiet for both teams as Louisville went almost six minutes without scoring a point. The Cards plaid sold defense during this time, only allowing the Hokies string together a 6-0 scoring run.

Jeff Walz had finally seen enough and called a timeout, out of which a play was drawn up to successfully get Jayda Curry an and-1 layup.

From there, Louisville’s offense had woken up, and even cut the lead down to three points multiple times.

However, the Hokies created just enough separation before the break, scoring the final bucket and a couple of free throws.

Louisville went into the locker room down 27-34.

Self-inflicted wounds

The third quarter was much more of a shootout, which unfortunately didn’t favor the Cards.

Louisville opened the scoring with a layup from Olivia Cochran, but the Hokies quickly responded with a three-pointer from Matilda Ekh. Cochran eight points and one steal in the third, but still couldn’t get a defensive stop causing things to get away from the Cards once again.

The end of the quarter saw Louisville’s offense slow just a hair while Tech’s just kept going, ending on an 8-2 run.

Louisville trailed 45-58 to end the quarter.

The fourth quarter started with near perfect defense and back-to-back points in the paint for Louisville.

Louisville couldn’t shut down the Hokies entirely, but their defense won more possessions than not.

The Cards finally capitalized on their earned momentum sending them on a 7-0 run in the quarter, a 17-5 run between the third and fourth, to cut the lead down to just one point.

However, several untimely fouls by the Cards gave VT free points before Louisville needed to play hack-a-Hokie.

The dagger came from Louisville, as they failed to hit shots down the stretch.

The Cards lost 65-70.

Just off

A lot went wrong for the Ville tonight on both ends of the ball, but the biggest factor in the loss was their inability to make shots.

Oftentimes, Louisville got open shots and clean looks but they couldn’t get anything to fall.

The Cards went 2-of-18 from three (11.1%) while also struggling to defend it themselves as the Hokies shot 37.5%. Louisville shot 39.4% from the field compared to Virginia Tech’s 53.5%.

While other players had an off night, Cochran stepped up with 14 points, eight rebounds and zero turnovers.

This was an unfortunate game for the Cards that ended a nice run. However, even when Louisville was down, they came firing back in the fourth quarter and kept competing in a challenging environment.

The Cards drop to 13-6 overall and 6-2 in conference play.

Photo courtesy // Taris Smith, Louisville Athletics