Cardinals Play Host to North Carolina and Boston College

Huddle: Justine Sowry addresses the team

Photo by: Adam Creech | Louisville Athletics

Cardinals Play Host to North Carolina and Boston College

October 01, 2020 | Field Hockey

By: Lori Harmon

The University of Louisville field hockey team will return to action this weekend with a pair of ACC contests. The Cardinals will play host to two-time defending national champion North Carolina Friday at 4:30 p.m. followed by a matchup with 2019 NCAA semifinalist Boston College Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Both games will be televised on the ACC Network.

THE WEEKEND AHEAD
Oct. 2 - North Carolina at Louisville, 4:30 p.m. | Oct. 4 - Boston College at Louisville, 1:30 p.m.
Venue: Trager Stadium
Television: ACC Network
Announcers: Jody Demling (PXP), Suzanne Bush (Analyst)
Friday: Watch Link
Sunday: Watch Link
Live Scoring | Louisville Game Notes
Attendance Policy: Attendance will be limited to approximately 20 percent capacity at Trager Stadium. Tickets will not be made available to the general public, but all home contests will be televised and/or streamed for those that can't attend. Tickets will only be available to guests of Louisville student-athletes, coaches and visiting team, along with a limited number for UofL students.
COVID-19 Protocols: https://gocards.com/news/2020/9/22/attendance-policies-announced-for-louisville-field-hockey-soccer.aspx

LOUISVILLE QUICK HITS
• Louisville brings a 2-0 record into the weekend after opening the 2020 season with a pair of wins against Duke, beating the Blue Devils 3-0 in a conference game on Saturday and following with a 3-1 decision on Sunday.
• The Cardinals are led offensively by senior midfielder Mercedes Pastor who has two goals and an assist for five points.
• Senior goalkeeper Hollyn Barr carries an ACC-best 0.50 goals against average with a shutout and six saves in the early season.
• Pastor was named to the Preseason All-ACC Field Hockey Team while the Cardinals were picked to finish fifth in the league according to a vote by the seven head coaches.
• Louisville returns 15 letterwinners and nine starters from last year's historic team, including Pastor and fellow NFHCA All-American senior defender Alli Bitting. Also back from last season are NFHCA All-West Region selections: seniors Madison Walsh and Meghan Schneider and junior Erica Cooper. Additionally, the Cardinals welcome eight talented newcomers to this year's squad.

HEAD COACH JUSTINE SOWRY
• Justine Sowry is in her 10th season at the helm. During her time at Louisville, she has guided the Cardinals to 125 wins, five NCAA tournament appearances along with a conference title and a runner-up finish in the ACC Championship.

UP NEXT
The Cardinals will hit the road for the remainder of the regular season starting with a pair of games at Wake Forest next Saturday and Sunday.

CARDS AGAINST THE FIELD
North Carolina
Series Record: UNC leads 8-4
Last Meeting: Nov. 8, 2019 - UNC won 3-1 in the semifinals of the ACC Championship.
Recap: North Carolina took a 3-0 lead with a pair of goals from Erin Matson and one from Feline Guenther. Bethany Russ put the Cards on the scoreboard. In the game, UNC outshot Louisville 14-12 while the Cardinals held an 8-7 edge in shots on goal and a 7-6 advantage in penalty corners. UofL goalkeeper Hollyn Barr collected four saves while Amanda Hendry had seven stops.
Scouting the Tar Heels: UNC (1-0, 1-0 ACC) defeated Wake Forest 3-1 on Sept. 20 to open the season.
The Tar Heels bring a 47-game win streak into the weekend after posting back-to-back 23-0 seasons with a pair of NCAA titles. UNC's last loss came on November 17, 2017 against UConn in the finals of the 2017 NCAA Championship which was held at Trager Stadium.
• Preseason all-ACC selection Erin Matson led the nation with 33 goals, and 15 assists for 81 points.

Boston College
Series Record: Louisville leads 4-3
Last Meeting: Nov. 18, 2019 - BC won 2-1 in a sudden-victory shootout in quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament at Trager Stadium.
Recap: The No. 5 University of Louisville field hockey team fell 2-1 in a sudden-victory shootout to No. 7 Boston College in a quarterfinal NCAA at Trager Stadium.
BC's Margo Carlin had the winning goal in the second round of sudden victory shootout to push the Eagles into the NCAA semifinals. In the game, Louisville (16-6) outshot the Eagles 20-9 with nine Cardinal shots on goal to BC's three. BC goalkeeper Sarah Dwyer notched seven saves in the contest while Louisville's Hollyn Barr collected two stops. BC scored first behind a second quarter goal from Elizabeth Warner. Bethany Russ evened the game in the third quarter. The score remained tied a 1-1 through the remainder of regulation, two sudden-victory 7v7 overtimes and the first shootout round before being decided in a sudden victory shootout goal.
Scouting the Eagles: Sunday will be the season opener for BC which was picked to finish third behind North Carolina and Virginia in the ACC Preseason Coaches' poll.
• Fusine Govaert and Margo Carlin enter the 2020 campaign as Preseason All-ACC selections. Both were all-ACC first team honorees in 2019 with Govaert posting eight goals and eight assists and Carlin leading the squad with 20 goals.

PASTOR TABBED ACC AND NFHCA OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Mercedes Pastor was selected as the ACC and NFHCA Offensive Player of the Week following her performance in the Cardinals' opening weekend.
* The forward/midfielder from Buenos Aires, Argentina, helped the Cardinals to a 2-0 record with wins over visiting Duke. Pastor tallied a pair of goals in Saturday's conference game that keyed a 3-0 victory and dished out an assist to give Louisville a 1-0 lead in Sunday's 3-1 win over the Blue Devils. For the weekend, Pastor led the team's attack with eight shots, five of which landed on goal.

SISTER ACT
Meghan and Katie Schneider have been college teammates since 2018 when Katie was a freshman and Meghan was a sophomore. After Katie's redshirt season in 2019, the Schneider sisters are back on the turf together with Katie on the forward line and Meghan as a defender and team co-captain.

BALANCED SCORING
The Cardinals have scored six goals in the early season with five players combining for the total. Mercedes Pastor leads the way with two while Erica Cooper, Emilia Kaczmarczyk, Katie Schneider and Charlie van Oirschot have each tallied one.

NEW ADDITIONS
The first two games of the season have featured three freshmen in the starting lineup.
• Redshirt freshman India Reed has stepped into a starting role for the first two games of the season and has been joined by true freshmen Aimee Plumb, Charlie van Oirschot.

ACC STRONG
In the ACC's 38 years as an NCAA Division I Field Hockey conference, league teams have accounted for more than half the total appearances in the national title game (41 of 76).
• Last season marked the 20th time in the last 21 NCAA Field Hockey Championships – and the 28th time in the last 31 years – that the ACC placed at least one team in the title game.
• The ACC currently has a streak of 31 straight years with at least one team in the NCAA semifinals. Thirty-nine of the last 65 teams to reach the national semifinals have come from the ACC.

HOW THE CARDS STACK UP
Louisville (2-0, 1-0 ACC) currently stands tied for first with North Carolina (1-0, 1-0) atop the ACC stands in the early season.
• Individually, Mercedes Pastor leads the league with two goals and five points while Hollyn Barr carries an ACC-best 0.50 goals against average.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
The Cardinals' roster is bolstered by several players who have gained valuable experience within their countries' national programs. The following is a list of players and their national or developmental squads.
Hollyn Barr - USWNT National Development Squad (2019)
Alli Bitting - USWNT U21 Team (2019)
Erica Cooper- USWNT U21 Team (2019)
Mackenzie Karl - USWNT U17 Team (2015-16)
Margot Lawn - USWNT U19 Team (2019); U17 Team (2017-19)
Mercedes Pastor - Argentina U21 Team (2015-17); U18 Team (2013-14)
Sofia Pendolino - USWNT RISE Team
Aimee Plumb - England U19 Team (2018-19)
Katie Schneider - USWNT U19 Team (2019)
Meghan Schneider - USWNT U21 Team (2018-19); U19 Team (2017-18)
Minna Tremonti - USWNT U19 Team (2019)

HOMEGROWN TALENT
The UofL field hockey team features seven players who chose to play for their hometown school: senior Elizabeth (Biz) Allgeier (Assumption), juniors Erica Cooper (Assumption), Sam Minrath (Christian Academy) sophomores Camryn Pichea (Assumption) and Mattie Tabor (Sacred Heart). Redshirt freshman India Reed (duPont Manual) and freshman Embry Jane (EJ) Imorde (Sacred Heart).

HOME SWEET HOME
The Cardinals have a perfect 2-0 record in the friendly confines of Trager Stadium after opening the 2020 season with a pair of wins over Duke.
• Last year, the Cardinals were 8-2 on the season at Trager Stadium, bringing their home record to 54-13 since the 2013 season.
•UofL owned a 5-3 record at Trager Stadium in 2018.
• Louisville compiled a 9-3 record at Trager Stadium in 2017.
• 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.
• The 6-2 loss to No. 4 Michigan snapped a 28-game win streak against non-conference opponents at Trager Stadium dating back to 2012. Prior to the Oct. 22 setback, the Cardinals had not lost to a non-conference opponent at home since Aug. 24, 2012 when they fell to Northeastern in their season opener. - Louisville also lost a 2-1 decision to UConn on Oct. 6, 2012 when both teams were members of the BIG EAST Conference.

PASTOR EARNS ACC PRESEASON HONORS
Mercedes Pastor was selected to the Preseason All-ACC Team and the Cardinals were picked to finished fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship in a vote by the league's seven head coaches.
• This marks the second straight All-ACC Preseason selection for Pastor. The senior midfielder from Buenos Aires, Argentina is a two-time National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) All-America selection, earning first team honors in 2019 and garnering second team accolades in 2018.
2020 ACC Predicted Order of Finish
1. North Carolina (6) - 48
2. Virginia - 37
3. Boston College - 30
4. Duke - 26
5. Louisville -25
6. Syracuse (1) - 23
7. Wake Forest – 7

TOUGH SLATE
The Cardinals' nine-game slate features four home games with the final five contests played on the road– all against ACC opponents.
• Two-time defending national champion North Carolina will headline a challenging ACC slate that also features all six teams ranked among the top 25 in the 2019 final 2019 National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) rankings. The Tar Heels finished last season atop the rankings while No. 4 Virginia, No. 7 Boston College and No. 8 Duke were in the top 10. Syracuse (No. 13) and Wake Forest (No. 21) round out Louisville's ACC opponents.
• Five of Louisville's ACC opponents earned a bid to the 2019 NCAA tournament including national champion North Carolina, and semifinalists Virginia and Boston College.

LOOKING BACK AT A MONUMENTAL 2019 SEASON
• The 2019 Cardinals posted a 16-6 overall record, tying a program mark for wins and earned the overall No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, serving as a host site for the first time in program history. Louisville also made its first foray into the NCAA quarterfinals after defeating Michigan 2-1 in double-overtime in its first-round matchup.
• UofL finished the 2019 season at No. 5 in the NFHCA Coaches poll - the highest final ranking in program history. The Cards 10 weeks of the season among the top 10 in the nation reaching as high as No. 5. National rankings for the 2020 season will not be released in the fall.