There was a lot of volleyball last weekend, and not a small amount this weekend. Lets run it down.

Last weekend, LOVB, one of the professional volleyball leagues in the US held their Finals weekend here in Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center. This was a 5 match schedule of a single elimination tournament involving all six teams in LOVB.

The marketing in the city for the event leaned heavily on the presence of Claire Chaussee and Anna “Stevie” Hall, both of course former Cards players, to appeal to the local crowd. I heard from various folks that this was being looked on by LOVB as an exploration of the local Louisville market for volleyball perhaps with an eye to adding a team here in the future, and the opportunity for Louisvillians to express their desire for this was not passed up. Mayor Craig Greenberg was interviewed during the Sunday session and said directly that we’d like this (while wearing a PGA shirt and then dipping right after, so maybe the strength of that message was diluted a bit). Other Louisvillians that got on the mic during the event also expressed the desire, so now we’ll have to see what LOVB does.

As to the competition, the play was good, although there was some disappointment in the crowd that Madison, the team with Chaussee and Hall, lost in the first round taking all of the local rooting interests out of the competition early. The silver lining is that gave Chaussee and Hall more free time over the weekend to enjoy being in a city that they both look at with strong feelings of affection.

Saturday of last weekend was, however, an off day for LOVB. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any volleyball going on, however.

The JVA club organization was hosting their ginormous club tournament over the weekend, with something on the order of 130-140 volleyball courts set up and running between the Kentucky Exposition Center and the Kentucky International Convention Center downtown. In the midst of that massive event, the Cardinals held their third match of the spring season. This was a five set battle with Tennessee and largely reinforced some of the observations from previous spring matches.

After the match vs Tennessee was over, I promptly hopped in my car and drove up to Indianapolis for the Indy Ignite match, where Anna DeBeer and Elena Scott are playing. Alas, the Ignite dropped a five set thriller to Grand Rapids, but Scott looked absolutely superhuman in defense, and DeBeer, who hadn’t started the past few matches essentially won the starting role back with some good play in the fifth set.

This weekend is a bit less crowded, but no less important.

I did make the run up to Indianapolis against last night for the Ignite vs The Vegas Thrill, with Charitie Luper. Again, it was a five set affair that saw the visitors barely prevail over the Ignite.

And then tonight, in just a few hours as of this writing, Louisville will be playing host to a first-indications-are-a-very-good Kentucky team in spring play at the L&NFCU Arena. The match starts at 6pm and will apparently be streams on the ACC Network Extra, a first for Louisville spring volleyball. Beyond the normal cheering for the Cards, former Cardinal Amaya Tillman will be on the Kentucky bench as a new assistant coach for the Wildcats.

It should be another great evening of college volleyball, but enjoy because this will be the last we get until mid to late August when we get the build up to the fall season. A little birdie tells me that this year will see the return of the Alumnae Match with former Cards pulling up the kneepads again to show the young whippersnappers how it’s down.

The second of four matches on the spring 2025 schedule was last night in Bloomington Indiana vs IU. The teams announced before the match that they would play at least four sets, and would consider a fifth at game time. They did not end up playing a fifth, after the Cards won all four of the previously planned sets, 25-22, 25-16, 25-21, 25-15.

Indiana has a bit of a thinner spring roster, with only nine players listed (and I’m not sure all of them were even dressed), and I think that contributed to the team just running out of gas by the end of the fourth set and almost certainly contributed to the decision to not play the fifth.

Again, with spring exhibition play, no official stats are released from the match. And again, it will be difficult if not impossible to draw any conclusions from what we saw last night about what our lineup in the fall will be. It’s clear that Coach Meske and the rest of the staff are looking at this spring schedule as an opportunity to put players in a (sometimes widely) varying set of positions and roles and see how they perform.

Perhaps the most extreme form of that was Ava Utterback, who played the third set in the libero jersey, and did quite a good job at it for someone listed as a 6‘0” outside hitter. But then in the fourth set, she doffed the libero jersey (returning it to Kamden Schrand who had it in the first set) and ripped some great swings on the left side as an outside hitter. It’s great to see Utterback getting some reps, and particularly last night as, being from the Indianapolis area, she had a large contingent of friends and family in the stands to see her play.

Also with a large contingent of fans was Molly Urban, again being a native of the Indianapolis metro area. She continued her excellent play from last week, bolstering her resume for wearing the libero jersey in the fall.

The last player that also excelled in front of a larger than typical crowd support was Chloe Chicoine. She hails from Lafayette Indiana, a bit further away than Indianapolis, but Bloomington is still closer than Louisville for her crew. What’s there to say about Chicoine, she just really darn good. She had a bunch of big swings, played solid defense in six rotations, and had a couple of amazing saves to keep points alive.

Nayelis Cabello is definitely loving playing in, mostly, the 5-1 offense with, like last week, several dumps, and quite a few blocks to her credit.

Hannah Kenny quite impressed last night as well. She got a few reps at setter, and impressively for a roughly 5‘7” setter, even got a really great swing on the left side. The spectacular play of the evening for her, however was a pass that pushed her over against the stanchion where she got contact with the ball maybe an inch away from making contact with the stanchion and almost perfectly set for the kill. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ball played from that close to such an obstacle so perfectly. Kenny also just generally impressed with her all around skills. She served aggressively and reliably, passed and dug on defense quite well. All in all, she showed that she has the skills to be able to play anywhere on the court. Alas, she is a bit let down by her 5‘7” height that will certainly relegate her to back row play either as a DS/Libero, or as a setter in a 6-2. The skills, however, remind me of Elena Scott’s play, which is high praise indeed.

Alanna Bankston got some time on the left side and played well. There is, of course, quite traffic jam for playing time on the left, and while I dont’ think she has made enough of a case for a starting role there, she is solidifying confidence in her ability to be ready if her number gets called as a backup.

One last player note, Kalyssa Blackshear was not in attendance last night. I didn’t get any word as the reason, but it could be something as “mundane” as an illness. Here’s hoping for her return next week.

Speaking of next week, the next opponent for the Cards is Tennessee. This match will be played in Freedom Hall as an overall part of the JVA World Championships club event held each year about this time at the Kentucky Exposition Center, colloquially “The Fairgrounds”. There are not tickets for the match itself, but a day pass for the overall JVA event are available at the JVA website for $18.

A few pictures from the event below. Fair warning, these are from me, a thoroughly amateur photographer, and just using my phone camera.

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.

The Cards opened their 2025 spring season last night with a match against Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is a brand new program, with an official program record of 0-0 still, with their first official competition happening this fall. The Cards take the “win” 4-1.

To put just a little bit of context on this Vanderbilt team, they’re coached by Anders Nelson, formerly Associate Head Coach at Kentucky under Craig Skinner. Also with the Kentucky connection, Azhani Tealer will be on the sidelines as an assistant coach for the ‘Dores, though she isn’t yet as she’s still playing in the PVF professional season alongside Louisville alumnae Anna DeBeer and Elena Scott for the Indy Ignite (and Tealer has been absolutely tearing it up as of late on the right side for the Ignite!). Other Assistant Coaches are Russell Corbelli, and Lauren Plum who played at Oregon.

The only other name I recognized on Vanderbilt’s team is Hailee Mack, who Louisville fans may recognize as the daughter of former UofL MBB Head Coach Chris Mack. During his tenure at UofL, the Macks were occasionally spotted at Volleyball matches given his daughters affinity for Volleyball, so it’s no surprise to see her playing at this level.

Given the 4-1 set score, obviously things get a bit loosey goosey in spring play, with play being adjusted based on the combined desire of the coaches. So not only did the teams play a fifth set when it normally would not have been contested with Louisville winning 3-1 after four, but they played the fifth set to 25 instead of the “official” 15.

Honestly, they probably should’ve stopped at four. Vanderbilt, with a smaller rotation of players, just looked gassed, and the fifth set was not particularly competitive. On the whole, however, Vanderbilt did play competitively in the first four sets, including winning the second set, which is really impressive for a brand new program with 10 of the 15 players on their roster being freshmen.

The crowd was largely a Louisville crowd, though Vanderbilt was fairly well represented.

Since this was a spring match, no official statistics are available, so we’re going on vibes and impressions here.

Overall, I was very pleased with what I saw from this Louisville team. After loosing the likes of Anna DeBeer, Elena Scott, Charitie Luper, Sofia Maldonado Diaz, Phekran Kong, and more, there was a lot of offense, and defense to replace.

It’s hard to draw too many conclusions about how the team will run from spring play because it’s a time for experiments and letting multiple people play in various roles to see what falls out. We saw three different players wearing the libero jersey, we saw four different players playing left side hitting, we saw a lot of 5-1 offensive scheme, but a bit of 6-2 as well. About the only really settled positions were the middles, with the expected Cara Cresse and Hannah Sherman duo.

On the left, Chloe Chocoinne has arrived from her time at Purdue and immediately impressed. She is a bit “undersized” at 5‘10” for a left side hitter, but she’s got enough hops to compensate, getting on top of the swings quite well, and blocking comfortably along side the tall tree Cresse.

Payton Peterson seemed like she was on a mission to prove that her clutch semifinal performance in December was no fluke, and she did just that. There are always minor details to be coached up, but she impressed both offensively and defensively.

Ava Utterback played one set as a DS, and one set as a full rotation left side hitter, and performed well. I’d say she’s behind Chiccoine and Peterson in the lineup, but certainly able to enter the game when necessary and perform well. Depth is a very good thing.

Kamden Shrand spent most of the time on the floor as the libero, and she did well, but the upside surprise of the evening was in the last two sets when Molly Urban donned the libero jersey and pretty much stunned the crowd with her play. Her passes and digs were almost always on target, and she got to shots that, honestly, she never would’ve gotten up in the fall. She’s clearly been putting in work, which is particularly impressive given her all-As and Bs academic workload as a BioEngineering Major at Speed School.

Nayelis Cabello was clearly enjoying herself playing in a 5-1 system most of the evening with setter dumps galore and even a BIG second contact swing off of an amazing dig from incoming freshman Hannah Kenny.

Kalyssa Blackshear, another incoming freshman played well on the right side, splitting time with Reese Robins, and pairing with her in the 6-2 for a set. Blackshear certainly has the height at 6‘5” to be a significant presence, but will need a bit of development, not surprising for a freshman. Robins looks to have incrementally improved her play. Already a presence on the right side, she looked just a bit more comfortable and “up to speed” than she did in the fall, so there’s good progress there.

Everyone on the Cards roster saw playing time on the court with the exception of Molly Wilson, who hasn’t yet arrived from UWashington, and Elle Glock. While there has been no public statement from the team or from Glock, word is that she will not be returning, instead opting to focus on her academics to finish her scholastic career.

Next up for the Cards is a match against IU in Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington on April 5th at 6pm. Tickets are $11 and can be purchased through IU at IU’s single event tickets site.

Information about tickets for spring matches is now out.

The first match, on Friday the 28th at Central Hardin High School, will not be a ticketed event (or at most they’ll be handing them out at the door with no advanced options), no cost. The match will be at 7:30, with door opening at 6:30.

The second match, against IU, is April 5th 6pm, in Bloomington at Wilkinson Hall. General admission tickets are available, through IU, for $11. IU single event tickets.

The third match is on April 12th at noon and is a part of the JVA World Challenge event that will be at the Fairgrounds. The UofL match is not ticketed itself, but entry to the JVA event is $18 for a day pass. The match will be played in Freedom Hall, but large numbers of club volleyball matches will be going on as part of the JVA event that the day pass also grants access to. Tickets through JVA

Finally, the Kentucky match at 6pm on Friday April 18th will be at 6pm, and tickets are $15. Those tickets are currently on sale to volleyball season ticket holders for their normal seats. Public sales should start on Wednesday the 26th through UofL’s normal Ticketmaster system.

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.

The volleyball program has announced a minor update for the spring schedule.

The match scheduled for March 28th is being moved. It was previously scheduled to be played at Elizabethtown High School, but will now be played at Central Hardin High School. Etown is in Hardin County, so this isn’t a massive move, just the other side of Etown, and while it’s not exactly a one-stoplight town, it’s not huge either.

The match also now has a start time, 7:30, that I don’t believe had been posted previously.

Coach Meske posted a story on Instagram that showed a bit of an improvement to the Cards practice setup.

The image, included below, shows L&N Federal Credit Union Arena set up in its practice arrangement. In the practice arrangement, UofL volleyball sets up two courts in LNFCU. They do this by retracting the bulk of the seating, and in the extra space provided set up two courts arranged perpendicularly to their “Gameday” orientation.

In the image, the nearer court is the black bordered Teraflex court that “lives” at LNFCU arena, but the far court has the red bordered Teraflex court that typically “lives” at the KFC Yum! Center.

Obviously, these court surfaces are able to be taken up and put down in different places and in different orientations, and while it’s not a huge amount of effort to do so, it’s not trivial either. Add in the transport of the court between campus and the KFC Yum! Center downtown, and Dan quite justifiably gave a shoutout to the people that manage the two facilities, specifically the main guy in charge of these two facilities, long time UofL Athletics employee Brent Lampkin.

Will the red bordered Teraflex be used during the spring schedule? It possibly could be transported over to Freedom Hall for the Tennessee match, and it might get transported to Elizabethtown for the match against Vanderbilt at Etown High School. I suspect it will be at neither, however. I would expect the Vanderbilt match to use whatever surface Etown High School has available, probably hardwood, and the Freedom Hall event is part of the JVA World Challenge club tournament event, and JVA will likely have their own surfaces put down on which Louisville and Tennessee will play. The spring match against Kentucky is at LNFCU and would presumably use the black bordered Teraflex that is normally used at LNFCU.