2025 Red & Black Intrasquad Scrimmage

Over the years that I’ve been a season ticket holder, the first official event on the calendar for Louisville Volleyball has been either an Alumnae match or a Red & Black intra-squad scrimmage. This year, the program decided to do both.

Last night was the Red & Black scrimmage. The teams were seemingly pretty well balanced, with no suggestion that one side was a likely “starter” squad scrimmaging against “reserves”.

There was even a little bit of shuffling of a few players between squads in set breaks. The format was a typical best 3 out of 5 and I suspect some of the shuffling of players may have been designed to tip the scales a little bit to play the full 5 sets.

Regardless of the motivations, the play was exciting and impressive.

The Red squad, originally composed of Alanna Bankston, Nayelis Cabello, Chloe Chicoine, Hannah kenny, Reese Robins, Molly Urban, Addison Makun, and Hannah Sherman, did win 3-2. They were led by Parker Mikesch. The balance of the team, Kalyssa Blackshear, Jessica Drapp, Chloe Meester, Payton Petersen, Kamden Schrand, Ava Utterback, Molly Wilson, and Cara Cresse was led by CC McGraw. The middles, particularly, shifted back and forth between teams quite a bit, but a couple of other players made the cross-over as well.

My impressions, first generally, the defense from this team is going to give a lot of teams nervous breakdowns. Both sides were keeping plays alive in ways that were mind-blowing. There were so many hard shots dug that ended up being absolute dimes to Wilson and Cabello. Blocking, led by an absolute monster Cara Cresse in her final year, is going to be impressive again as well.

For individuals, Nayellis Cabello settled, definitively, who is the primary setter on the squad. Combine her quickness to get to passes that weren’t perfectly placed (there were some) and still give her hitters great positions to swing on, with her solid blocking (5, apparently? We don’t have official stats to confirm this), I think she’s clearly the choice for a 5-1.

However, with the skills of Wilson, who’s placement was amazing, along with a pair of absolutely legitimate 6 rotation outside hitters, and a competitive pair of right sides, the personnel are there for another season of 6-2. We may get a sense next week if Meske goes that route.

I do think Schrand has a good grip on the libero jersey, and it’s evident that she put in quite a bit of work in the off-season to do so. The competition from Urban and Kenny is legit, but at least for the moment, I think Schrand has the upper hand. She’s got a bit of quickness over Urban, and definitely has the 2nd ball contact advantage. Kenny is the queen of 2nd ball contact with her background as a setter, but she still doesn’t handle serve receive quite as well as the others. I do believe her ceiling is astronomical given her overall skillset, so keep an eye on her as she develops at this level.

Chloe Chicoine was every bit as good on the left side as we expected, and Payton Petersen carried the load admirably as well. Both are, as mentioned above, totally legitimate 6 rotation players, leaving Meske with the ability to use his substitutions (15 per set) for other strategic reasons such as the 4 per rotation needed for a double-sub based 6-2 perhaps.

In the middle, Cara Cresse is playing like an absolute monster, though that’s probably not terribly surprising to anyone. Lot’s of eyes were on Addison Makun (Mā-KŪN) as the new freshman, and she played well, but will take some adjustment to get up to the level and speed of play…but not much. Hannah Sherman continues her development and keeps getting better. Her particular strength is on the blocking side, but she is a competent offensive middle as well.

The above commentary has alluded to the right sides, which is the domain of Reese Robins and Kalyssa Blackshear this season. Robins has improved and seemingly toned up a bit, and Blackshear, as a true freshman, is impressively hitting the ground running. If we do go with a 6-2, the two of them will pair well in that system. Otherwise, I think Robins gets the start.

We do have, as has been previously commented on, a long line of players on the left side. As mentioned above Chicoine and Petersen I think are at the front, but I would put Ava Utterback fairly close behind with more legitimate 6 rotation skills, the freshman Chloe Meester looked good but will benefit from some development, and Alanna Bankston has some really great swings at the net along with a great block or two.

Off the court, a couple of shout-outs, Dan Meske looked cool and composed in his first official event at the helm of the program. He addressed the crowd several times during the course of the event and was smooth and comfortable, though to be fair, he mostly fulfilled that role under DBK as well given that she never seemed quite comfortable being the center of attention.

Jerome Pascua was living his best life as the PA announcer. I know, it seems like a weird position to shout-out, but we really are blessed to have a PA announcer in arena who is not just good on the mic, but is also very knowledgeable about the game of volleyball. I don’t think I can count the times when I hear PA announcements at other schools and mentally respond, “Uh, no, that’s not what that call was.” and that basically just doesn’t happen with Pascua. He’s almost single-handedly responsible for getting the Louisville crowd to adopt the “stay standing until our team scores their first point” tradition that, while not uncommon across volleyball, wasn’t something that was done at Louisville until he kick-started it a year or two ago.

All in all, it was a fun evening, it was great to be back at L&N FCU Arena, where the 2024 Finalist banner has been hung.

The next chance to see the Cards in action will be next week, Saturday the 23rd at 2pm. At L&N FCU Arena again, this will be the exhibition against (mostly) Louisville alumnae. Rumors are that we won’t have enough alumnae playing to fill out a full team, so there will be some non-alumnae on the other side of the net. But rumors are that we’ll see Elena Scott, Charitie Luper, and Claire Chaussee. Anna DeBeer will be in attendance, as she was last night, but will not be playing as she got a shot in her ankle intended to help with her continued healing from her ligament tears in the National Semifinals and has to stay off the court for a couple of weeks. Will we see Sarah Petkovic out on the court? There are more than a few of us that would love to see that happen, and at least in my estimation, she seems to still be in playing form.