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.

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.

Volleyball is allowed to play four dates of inter-collegiate competition for a spring schedule. Of course, the competition is exhibition and doesn’t get recorded for any official stats.

Louisville volleyball will take advantage of all four dates of play for the 2025 spring season.

They will start off with a match against Vanderbilt on March 28th. The Commodores will play their first official season of play in fall, so this will be a good warm-up for them. Whitman Czajkowski was listed as “Technical Coordinator/Sports Statistician” for the UofL volleyball squad until the end of the 2024 season. He has taken a role with Vanderbilt’s volleyball program as the Director of Technology and Analytics. This match will be in Elizabethtown, at Elizabethtown High School.

The Cards will continue on the road, with a trip to Bloomington, IN to play Indiana University on April 5th.

Louisville will finish the spring season in Louisville with a match on April 12th at Freedom hall against Tennessee. This is scheduled in conjunction with the JVA Qualifier, a large club volleyball tournament held at the Fairgrounds every year, so expect a large crowd.

And finally, as is tradition, the Cardinals and the Wildcats will tangle once again on April 18th at L&N Federal Credit Union Arena. No announcement yet if there will be tickets for this event, even if they are zero dollar, but I wouldn’t be surprised given the limited seating at LNFCU.