Volleyball Set to Open Season with Alumnae Match
August 23, 2013 | Women's Volleyball
Aug 23, 2013
Cardinal volleyball fans will get their first glimpse of the 2013 squad at the Alumnae match at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24 in Cardinal Arena. There will be an intrasquad scrimmage as well as interviews to introduce the new faces on the team and visiting with Cardinal volleyball alumnae.
After their record-breaking season last year, the defending BIG EAST regular season and tournament champions look to keep the momentum going, while adding four freshman and a grad student to replace the top three leaders in kills, total attacking attempts, service aces, and total blocking. A loaded schedule, including an early invitational in University Park, Pa., against perennial national power, Penn State and former BIG EAST conference foe, Syracuse, means the team will have to hit the ground running.
The story of this year will be to see how this team responds after losing four of its top six point scorers from last season. To put it into perspective, this team lost 40.2% of its service ace production from 2012, 63.7% of its total blocking, 72.4% of its kills, and 73% of its total attempts in attacks. Lola Arslanbekova, Gwen Rucker, Kaitlynn James, and Tanya Lukyanenko have all moved on, leaving fellow seniors Brooke Mattingly and Emily Juhl as the top prospects for this season. The team hopes to have some initial impact from the newcomers, including redshirt freshman Janelle Jenkins, local freshman Maya McClendon and transfer graduate student, Randi Ewing.
The top scorers from last year may be gone, but this team does not lack experience. Third-year head coach Anne Kordes brings back five seniors from a stellar 2012 campaign. Caitlin Welch, Hannah Kvitle, and Carly Sahagian join Mattingly and Juhl to lead these Cardinals in its inaugural debut in the newly minted American Athletic Conference. After breaking a couple school records last year, including 628 digs in a season and 1,608 digs so far over her career, Welch looks to continue her dominance on the court.
The home court advantage of the KFC Yum! Center last year proved to be valuable for the volleyball team. It broke its single-season attendance record with a total of 51,507. Volleyball fans in the Louisville area also got a treat after the school hosted the 2012 NCAA National Volleyball Championships last November and December. The team hopes that enthusiasm carries over into this season, as they look to continue their streak of NCAA appearances with their 25th this fall, which is the ninth longest in the nation.
The success of last year's squad seems endless. Individually, Kvitle, Mattingly, and Welch will bring back their experience of being chosen to play for the USA National A2 Team. A record four players from a year ago have signed professional contracts, and Gwen Rucker joined Arslanbekova as another All-American selection. Collectively, the team rose to a record high RPI of 4, and became the first team to win the BIG EAST regular season and conference tournament title in the same year. After the Penn State Invitational on August 30 and 31, the preseason 19th-ranked Cardinals will travel to North Dakota on September 6 to compete in the Fargo Doublewood Inn Classic against the field of North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, and Wisconsin. Beginning on Sept. 10, their next stop will take them down the road to Lexington as they contend with the likes of Kentucky, Minnesota, and Pepperdine in the Bluegrass Battle. The Cardinals' first home appearance will take place on Sept. 21 when they host the Active Ankle Challenge against Rice and Virginia Tech on campus at Cardinal Arena.
They begin their conference slate with home matches at the KFC Yum! Center versus former Conference USA rival Memphis and new conference foe, Temple, on Sept. 27 and 29, respectively. An early October trip to the state of Texas, will have the team at SMU on Oct. 4 and Houston two days later. The team will return home to face USF on Oct. 11 and UCF on Oct. 13, both downtown. The Cardinals will take on a grueling road trip beginning on Oct. 15 and ending on November 3, which will see them take on seven teams over that period without a home match. Starting with Wichita State, the squad will then travel to conference rival Cincinnati, next is Middle Tennessee State, Rutgers, Connecticut, and they will be returning the favor when they go to Temple and Memphis.
The Cardinals finally host again on Nov. 8 and 10 when Houston and SMU come to town. They will make a quick trip to Florida when they visit UCF on Nov. 15 and USF a couple days after, before closing out the regular season at home with the first of three matches is at the KFC Yum! Center against Cincinnati on Nov. 22. The final two matches will be held at Cardinal Arena versus Connecticut on Nov. 27 and Rutgers on Nov. 29.
The American does not host a conference championship with the regular season winner taking the automatic NCAA qualifier.
