No. 12 Field Hockey Hits the Road for Miami (Ohio)

The 12^th ranked University of Louisville field hockey team will travel to Oxford, Ohio to take on Miami University on Monday at 2 p.m. at the Miami Field Hockey Turf.

Louisville (1-0) opened the season with a 5-1 win at Indiana. In that game, forward Minout Mink scored a pair of goals in her collegiate debut while fellow freshman Bethany Russ and senior Erin McCrudden each had two assists in the game. Sophomore goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran collected four saves while playing all 70 minutes.

Game Day Information
Date: August 29, 2016
Location: Oxford, Ohio
Venue: Miami Field Hockey Turf
Live scoring: Miamiredhawks.com
Twitter updates: @UofLSoftball

Louisville vs. Miami
Series History: Miami leads 23-15 – the bulk of the series was played between 1994 and 2004 when the teams were both members of the Mid-American Conference. Louisville has won the last 12 meetings.
Last Meeting: Aug. 26, 2012 – Louisville won 3-1 at Trager Stadium
Scouting the RedHawks: Miami enters Monday's matchup with a 1-1 record after opening the season with a 5-1 loss to fifth-ranked Virginia in Charlottesville, but rebounding for a 9-0 win over Saint Louis. In that game, Paula Portugal set a school record with five goals.
• Miami is receiving votes the preseason National Field Hockey Coaches' Association poll. It is coming off a 12-8 season in which it tied for the MAC Championship with a 5-1 record. The RedHawks return 19 letterwinners, including four who were named First Team All-MAC last season: Carla Romagosa, Mariona Heras, Paula Portugal and goalkeeper Alysa Xavier.

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 66-35 record at Louisville and has an overall 124-66 record while in her tenth season as a head coach.

Up Next
Following Monday's game, Louisville will play host to Brown and Richmond in its home-opening weekend. The Cardinals will face Brown on Saturday at 11 a.m. and will play Richmond Sunday at 1 p.m. Admission is free to all games at Trager Stadium.

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.

Calling Card - Stingy defense
The 2015 Louisville defense produced nine shutouts, the most since the 2001 team recorded nine.

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.

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Players Mentioned

Lotta Kahlert

Erin McCrudden

Ayeisha McFerran

Minout Mink

Bethany Russ

Nicole Woods

University of Louisville Athletics