The other active pro volleyball league in the US is holding its championship tournement this weekend. The Pro Volleyball Federation, or PVF, has gathered in Las Vegas to crown a champion.

The PVF had eight teams participating in their league this year, and the top four finishers in the regular season standings advanced to the tournament. The semifinals were contested last night (Friday), and the Finals will be held tomorrow (Sunday) at 4pm EDT and aired on CBS Sports.

There are three Louisville rooting interests in the event.

Elena Scott and Anna DeBeer with their Indy Ignite were just barely able to slip into the final fourth seed of the tournament after a late season slide where they lost seven of their last eight matches.

They faced off last night against the top seeded Omaha Supernovas and were able to get the upset in a five set victory: 25-17, 23-25, 23-25, 25-20, 15-13.

I think a couple of stats really tells the tale for our Cardinals. Elena Scott had 11 serve receptions, while DeBeer and her fellow left side hitter Nina Čajić took 25 and 56, respectively. To say that Omaha was afraid of serving Elena is a tremendous understatement, and for good reason, as Scott passed at a 73% positive rate, which is a great mark. Another is Sydney Hilley, the setter for The Ignite, had seven kills on 14 attacks, which is just crazy high for a setter. Overall the Ignite had a really balanced attack. And I’m still upset that Azhani Tealer has me cheering for a former Kentucky Wildcat.

The other match last night saw The Atlanta Vibe, with Aiko Jones, go down to defeat to the Orlando Valkyries. Jones, and the Vibe came on strong at the end of the season. Jones mostly didn’t play in the early part of the season, but once she started getting some playing time, she really shined and became a valuable part of the team. The team as a whole won 13 of their last 14 matches of the season to secure the second seed in the tournament.

And yes, you may have picked up on this. Like LOVB before them, PVF has the lowest seeded teams in the tournament matching up for the championship match. in LOVB it was the five and six seeds as all six teams in the league got to play in their tournament, while PVF is seeing the three seed Orlando vs the four seed Indy in the finals.

You just can’t reasonably say that pro volleyball isn’t interesting to watch here in the states.

UofL Volleyball is going to have some name duplication this fall. There are going to be three pairs of players that share a common first name.

The team will surely make heavy use of nicknames to distinguish, and I’ll likely make use of some of those nicknames at times as well, so a quick primer on where we are so far with those nicknames.

First, the pair that is already on campus is returning middle Hannah Sherman and incoming freshman Hannah Kenny. Kenny is officially listed as a setter, but don’t be surprised if she plays in a DS or even potentially the libero role by the time fall rolls around. “Sherm” is the nickname that team is using for Hannah Sherman in the middle, and “Kenny” for the smaller setter. Pretty straightforward.

The other two pairs involve a player that hasn’t yet arrived on campus, so how the team sorts out nicknames for them isn’t sure, yet. Look for an update to this post when they get figured out. There’s a reasonable chance that, like the Hannahs, it will just be their last names, or some variant thereof.

The next pair involves the setter graduate transfer coming to us from the University of Washington, Molly Wilson. And that means she’ll be pairing up with junior DS and another candidate for the libero position, particularly after her outstanding performance in the spring match against Vanderbilt, Molly Urban.

The last pairing involves a pair of newcomers. Chloe Chiccoine joins us for her junior year as a high flying outside hitter after two years at Purdue. She will pair with incoming freshman Chloe Meester. Meester is a 6‘3” outside hitter from Mount Vernon, Iowa

The spring season continues this evening with a match at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington against Indiana University at 6pm.

We haven’t yet done a “Cards in the Pros” rundown here on Wide Net Cards, and with an announcement today, it seems like a fine time to do that.

Let’s start off with alumnae playing outside of the US.

Sofia Maldonado Diaz was, alas, only with the Cards for a single year, playing right side in the fall through the Final Four run. She’s currently playing for CSO Voluntari in Romania. They list her as an outside hitter instead of an opposite, reinforcing what we here in Louisville quickly came to understand, that she can play anywhere on the court.

Raquel Lázaro, who joined the Cards as a setter for two years (2022, and 2023), is playing, as a setter, naturally, for Béziers Angels, in Béziers France, which is very near the Mediterranean coast.

To bring it back to the states, Amber Stivrins played one year with the Cards as a solid backup outside hitter. She’s playing for LOVB Omaha alongside her sister, standout Nebraska Middle Blocker Lauren Stivrins.

Still in LOVB, we get one of our two-for-one deals as we find Claire Chaussee and Anna “Stevie” Hall nee Stevenson playing for LOVB Madison. That’s basically hometown for Chaussee, a native of Sun Prairie which is a suburb/exurb of Madison. LOVB Madison current sits in 3rd place in the LOVB standings, and if I do my math correctly, will clinch a bye for the Playoffs to be held next week at the KFC Yum! Center with another win out of their two matches still to be competed.

Moving over to the PVF league here in the States, we get another two-for-one deal in Indianapolis. The Indy Ignite drafted UofL stars from this fall Anna DeBeer and Elena Scott. DeBeer took some time rehabing her ankle injury from the NCAA SemiFinals, but once she got back into playing form, she has picked up for the Ignite where she left off for the Cards. It took Scott part of the season before she claimed the starting position from Indy native Kylie Murr, but, again, once she did, there’s been no looking back.

Cruising down I-70 east we arrive in Columbus for our last two-for-one deal. Two Cardinal standout setters, Tori Stringer nee Dilfer, and Wilma Rivera are battling it out for the starting setter spot for the Columbus Fury. Columbus had, frankly, a terrible start to the season, losing their first seven matches played. It started looking up a little bit after that, though it’s not exactly a great situation there. Currently in last place, they’re sporting a 5-15 record for the season.

Out west, Charitie Luper is playing for the Vegas Thrill after her year with the Cards. The Thrill is not exactly tearing the league up, but they’re about mid-pack in the league standings, with a record of 8-11.

The San Diego Mojo were set, before the season started, to have Erin Fairs on their squad, but prior to the season starting she decided to hang up the kneepads and begin her career in coaching, getting hired as an Assistant Coach for her hometown Rice Owls.

Lastly in the PVF, we come to the player who’s announcement today spurred this post. Aiko Jones joined the Atlanta Vibe as a right side hitter. Primarly coming off the bench in the early season, she has, in the past handful of matches, dramatically increased her playing time, along with her kills and blocks stats. After her season playing for the Vibe concludes, Jones, it was announced today, will return to Louisville to be an Assistant Coach for the Bellarmine Knights.

I hope you’ll join me in continuing to cheer for these Forever Cards as they play, coach, and otherwise pursue their professional lives.

Coach Dan Meske posts prolifically on Instagram and other social media, frequently with various volleyball coaching tips and tricks. Typically these feature video from Louisville players, current or alumnae, with his captions explaining what’s going on in the video and what coaches should be looking for and training.

His latest, however, is a bit more “just plain fun”. It is a video from practice, and if you want to see Reese Robins doing some great work blocking on the right side, it’s good for that. What’s really great about the video however is that Meske has synced it with a bit of Snoop Dogg from back in the Summer Olympics when he was commentating on a Badmitton rally. It syncs remarkably well, and is good for a bit of a smile.

Louisville Volleyball practice with Snoop Dogg commentary

The vollyball program officially announced that Molly Wilson, graduate student transfer from Washington, has joined the team. We previously had Molly’s Instagram post stating that she was coming, but this is the announcement from the program.

As I understand it, the program can’t officially announce a player being a part of the program until they either have signed a National Letter of Intent, which would be for high schoolers that will be joining the program in their first year, or until the player is enrolled in the school, in the case of a transfer.

Molly is a setter and will have one year to play with the Cards.

Molly Rae Wilson announced that she would be joining the Cards for her fifth year of eligibility.

Wilson is a 5‘11” setter who previously played three years at the University of Washington in the Big10 Conference. She red-shirted her freshman year, so this will be her final year of overall eligibility.

The Cards list three setters on the current roster, although in the spring, teams frequently will not update online rosters in a timely fashion. That being said, gocards.com has added Molly Wilson to the roster, while still having Elle Glock and Nayelis Cabello on the roster.

This is significant as there has been some amount of speculation that, barring any new transfers, Cabello would likely be the starting starter for the Cards in the fall, with Glock not seeing much playing time. That has also triggered speculation that Glock may transfer, or otherwise choose not to return to play with the Cards in the fall. There has been no public comment from the volleyball program concerning this, and with Wilson, Cabello, and Glock all currently listed on the roster, it would tend to indicate a Glock return.

There is still considerable time, including another general transfer portal window in May, where Glock, or anyone else, could make a decision to transfer to another team, or just not return for the Cards.