Louisville Defeats Hartford 86-69

Louisville came out of the gate sluggish against Hartford on Saturday afternoon. The Cards had 9 turnovers in the first 4 ¹⁄₂ minutes of the game. The Hawks swooped in and grabbed the lead from the Cards with their biggest lead of 16-24 coming early the second quarter. Then Louisville started to turn up the defensive intensity which led to more offensive opportunities. The Cards outscored Hartford 37-18 in the second quarter to go into halftime with a 53-36 lead.

Both teams were a little stale to start the 3rd quarter. With only a couple minutes left in the 3rd the score was 59-47 and then a flagrant foul was called on Hartford player Sierra DaCosta and their coach got a technical protesting the call. It was all Louisville from that point and the final score was 86-69.

Asia Durr was high scorer for Louisville with 20 points with nearly half her points coming off of free throws. Sam Fuehring followed up her strong performance from Friday with a 19 point, 5 rebounds on Saturday. Dana Evans came off the bench to add 11 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 turnover. Coach Walz said of Dana, “I’m proud of her. I’m trying to get her mentally in the right spot. Everybody worries about the wrong things. Just embrace what you’re doing....embrace your role. Why not come out and be the Sixth Player of the Year in the ACC?”

Coach Walz was not pleased with his team’s turnovers. “We played a great second quarter unfortunately we were just a little sloppy today. Fatigue...and I think our kids are excited to get home. It’s something we have to get better at because you can’t use that as an excuse....They [Hartford] played hard and we didn’t play very smart.” He added, “To go from turning it over 10 times against Arizona State to 21 times tonight is just inexcusable. We give them 27 points off of our 21 turnovers. To win by 17 and have that debacle actually says a lot about our ball club that we can really be good if we take care of things.

Louisville plays Miami of Ohio in the Yum Center on Monday night at 7pm. Coach Walz said of the Redhawks: “It’s a ball club that’s 4-0. They’re playing extremely well right now. They’ve had a good 5 or 6 days to prepare for us and they’re very well-coached so I know they’ll come in with a game plan.” He closed with, “I hope to see everybody on Monday night. First home game for a ball club that’s had five games on the road.”