No. 12 Field Hockey Travels to Indiana for Season Opener

The 12^th ranked University of Louisville field hockey team will open the season on Friday when the Cardinals travel to Bloomington, Ind. to face Indiana University in the annual Battle of the Border.

Game Day Information
Date: August 26, 2016
Location: Bloomington, Ind.
Venue: IU Field Hockey Complex
Television: BTN Plus; BTN2Go.com
Announcers: Patrick White, Karley Morotta
Live scoring: IUHoosiers.com
Twitter updates: @UofLSoftball

Louisville vs. Indiana
Series History: Louisville leads 11-7
Last Meeting: August 31, 2015- Stephanie Byrne scored a pair of goals and Ayeisha McFerran collected three saves in her first career shutout to help lead Louisville to a 3-0 win at Trager Stadium.
Scouting the Hoosiers: Indiana will play its season-opener against Louisville on Friday. The Hoosiers are receiving votes in the Penn Monto/NFHCA preseason poll after finishing the 2015 season with a record of 9-9.
• IU placed three players on the Big Ten's 2016 Player's to Watch List which includes: Kate Barber, Morgan Dye and Noëlle Rother.
Cardinal Connection: Louisville alum Kayla May is in her first season as an assistant coach at Indiana. May, who was a forward for the Cardinals from 2006 through 2009, helped Louisville to the 2006 BIG EAST regular season title and an NCAA appearance in 2008.

Head Coach Justine Sowry on the matchup
"You have to expect the unexpected in that first game. Indiana is traditionally a very good team, a very solid unit and with Amanda Janney being in her second year, you know they're really fine-tuning things. They are enthusiastic and they're talented. Their goalkeeper can keep everything out of the next on some days and Kate Barber is an incredibly reliable, solid defender."

Cardinal Quick Hits
• Louisville is ranked No. 12 in the Penn Monto/National Field Hockey Preseason Coaches Poll.
• The Cardinals finished the 2015 campaign with a 13-7 overall record and made their second-straight NCAA appearance. Louisville was ranked No. 11 in the final Penn Monto/NFHCA National Coaches Poll and spent seven weeks among the top 10 in the nation after opening the 2015 season at No. 12.
• Louisville returns 15 players including seven starters returning from last season. Key returners include: NFHCA All-American sophomore goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran and All-Region selections senior Erin McCrudden and junior Nicole Woods. UofL also welcomes eight newcomers.
• Woods, who led the 2015 Cardinals with 22 points (9G, 4A) was recently named the USA Field Hockey's U21 Junior World Cup Roster.
• Head coach Justine Sowry completed her sixth season at the helm for the Cardinals. She has compiled a 65-35 record at Louisville and has an overall 123-66 record while in her tenth season as a head coach.

Up Next
Following Friday's game, the Cardinals will travel to Oxford, Ohio for a Monday matchup at Miami (Ohio).

Up Last: Cards Top Ohio in Preseason Scrimmage
After a week of practice, Louisville hosted Ohio University in a preseason scrimmage on Thursday, Aug. 24. In that matchup, senior Lotta Kahlert scored twice and dished out two assists while junior Nicole Woods added a pair of goals to help the Cardinals beat the Bobcats 7-0 through 70 minutes of play. Senior Shannon Sloss, freshman Minout Mink and sophomore Marigrace Ragsdale also scored for the Cards. Senior Erin McCrudden added a goal in a 10-minute 7v7 period. Sophomore goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran collected five saves in the shutout.

McFerran, Woods Named to Preseason All-ACC Field Hockey Team
Ayeisha McFerran and Nicole Woods have been named to the 2016 Preseason All-Atlantic Coast Conference Field Hockey Team as announced by the league office on Tuesday. The Cardinals were also picked to finish sixth in a vote by the head coaches.
• McFerran, a sophomore goalkeeper from Larne, Northern Ireland is coming off of an impressive rookie season. In 2015, she posted a 1.24 goals against average and nine shutouts and became the first freshman in program history to earn National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) All-America honors after being named to the All-West Region first team. McFerran is also a member of the Irish National Field Hockey team.
• This marks the second straight conference preseason honor for Woods, a junior forward/midfielder from Beverly, Mass. She was a second team All-ACC selection and first team NFHCA All-West Region pick in 2015 after leading the Cardinals with 22 points and nine goals. Woods is a member of USA Field Hockey's Under-21 team and was recently named to the 2016 Junior World Cup Roster.

2016 ACC Field Hockey Preseason
Predicted Order of Finish
1. North Carolina (4) - 34
2. Virginia (1) - 28
3. Syracuse (2) - 27
4. Duke - 22
5. Wake Forest - 14
6. Louisville - 12
7. Boston College – 10

ACC Strong
• The Atlantic Coast Conference has continued its showing among the nation's best with all seven league teams appearing in the top 12 including: No. 1 North Carolina, No. 2 Syracuse – the defending national champion, No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Virginia, No. 7 Wake Forest and No. 8 Boston College.
• ACC teams have won 18 of the 35 NCAA field hockey titles, including 11 of the last 14, and at least one ACC squad has advanced to the national championship for 17 straight years. All seven ACC programs earned bids to the 2015 NCAA Championship and all seven finished the 2015 season ranked nationally.

Louisville Ranked No. 12 in NFHCA poll
The University of Louisville field hockey team will open the 2016 season ranked No. 12 in the Penn Monto/National Field Hockey Coaches Association Preseason poll which was announced on Aug. 23.
• This marks the 32nd straight week the Cardinals have appeared in the top 20 rankings dating back to the 2013 season. The Cards finished 2014 ranked 10th in the final poll. Last season, Louisville spent six weeks in the top 10.
• On Oct. 7, 2014, Louisville appeared at No. 5 in the coaches' poll marking the second top-five appearance in program history with Louisville achieving a program-best No. 4 ranking in the 2002 season.
• All seven ACC teams were included in the NFHCA's top 11. It marks the 34th consecutive poll that the entire league has been ranked, a streak dating back to October 2012.

Woods Named to 2016 Junior World Cup Roster
Nicole Woods has been named to the Under-21 United States Women's National Team Junior World Cup roster. The 2016 Junior World Cup will take place November 23 – December 4 in Santiago, Chile.
• The junior forward was selected to the 2016 Junior World Cup Roster after training with the U-21 USWNT throughout the summer which included a first place finish at the 2016 Young Women's National Championship. In March 2016, she scored five goals in the 2016 Junior Pan American Championship to help Team USA to a silver medal and an automatic berth to the Junior Women's World Cup.
• Woods was initially named to the U21 team in the summer of 2015, she competed with the team in a test series against Great Britain in January 2016. She was previously a member of the USA Field Hockey U19 squad and traveled to Belgium for a series of games.

Home Sweet Home
Louisville posted a 7-3 record at Trager Stadium in 2015 and is now 25-4 at home since the beginning of the 2013 season.
• The Cards were 8-1 at Trager in 2014. On Oct. 17, 2014 Louisville fell 2-1 in overtime to No. 17 Boston College, snapping a 16 -game home victory streak dating back to the 2012 season.
• Prior to the Boston College loss in 2014, the Cards' last home loss came on Nov. 2, 2012 when they fell 2-1 in overtime to then-No. 5 Connecticut in the semifinals of the BIG EAST Championship.
• In 2013, UofL posted a perfect 10-0 record at Trager Stadium, going undefeated at home for the first time in school history.

Tough Road Ahead
The Cardinals will face a challenging schedule in 2016. Nine of their 19 opponents ranked in the NFHCA's preseason top 20 with seven of those teams ranked inside the top 10. Additionally, is slated to take on five teams who are receiving votes in the preseason poll.

Kahlert and McCrudden Tabbed Team Captains
The 2016 Cardinals will be look to senior captains Lotta Kahlert and Erin McCrudden to lead them on the field. Kahlert has played in every game as a Cardinal and started all 20 her junior season. McCrudden worked her way into the starting lineup in 2015 and went on to earn NFHCA All-West Region honors.

Cards on ACC Network Extra
Every Louisville field hockey home game will be aired digitally on ACC Network Extra as part of the initial phase of the full ACC Network announced July 21 by ESPN and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Live streaming of Olympic sports conference-wide will increase annually, culminating with 1,300 total ACC events when the linear network launches in 2019.
• The events covered by ACC Network Extra will be immediately available to users who have access to WatchESPN and the ESPN app. More than 600 total Olympic sporting events – encompassing the fall, winter, and spring seasons – will be carried exclusively by ACC Network Extra during the 2016-17 academic year.

No. 12 Field Hockey Travels to Indiana for Season Opener

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Players Mentioned

Stephanie Byrne

Lotta Kahlert

Erin McCrudden

Ayeisha McFerran

Minout Mink

Marigrace Ragsdale

Shannon Sloss

Nicole Woods

University of Louisville Athletics