Louisville Defeats Virginia 63-53

Sometimes the final score is not a fair indicator of the reality of a game. Tonight score is one of those times. Despite having a short bench and foul trouble Virginia had a 10 point lead in the third quarter but the Cards cut it to 2 going into the 4th. For most of the final quarter the teams traded the lead but after breaking a 50-50 tie at the 3:51 mark Louisville would lead the rest of the way.

Hailey Van Lith led all scorers with 17 to which she added 5 assists and 4 rebounds. Chrislyn Carr was the only other Card in double figures with 14 with 12 of those coming in the 4th quarter. Merissah Russell had 9 points and 8 rebounds.

After the game Coach Walz said, “You can’t turn the ball over 10 times in a half” but he added “we had 16 assists on 19 made field goals... we did step up and make our free throws..... we wore them down they had some injuries and we kept going at them and going at them. Overall it was a great, great win.”

He did praise some of the players coming off the bench, “You’ve got to take advantage when the opportunity presents itself.... Liz [Dixon] only played 5 minutes in the Carolina game but she bounced right back tonight and plays 18 and did a really nice job defensively. Merissah played really well and hits a huge 3 for us, she rebounded, and went 3 of 4 from the line. I was really proud of her.”

Coach also implored fans to come to the game on Sunday against Clemson. “I worked hard to get it changed from the ACC to a 6 to a 2PM start so I’m hoping our fans can come out. If you’re planning to go to a SuperBowl party you can start drinking at halftime of our game.... It would be awesome to get 8 - 10,000 back out there. I called the ACC and told them that we’re your biggest asset in terms of fan attendance for the past 8 or 9 years and you’re putting us at 6:00. It’s not fair to our fan base. They were kind enough to change it to a 2:00. What I can’t have is 4,000 show up because we would’ve had 4,000 at 6:00.... so let’s come out here and show the ACC this is why we moved it to 2:00.”