Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Official Athletics Website

Big East Weekly Awards Keep Coming For Notre Dame Women's Soccer

Oct. 10, 2000

The top-ranked Notre Dame women’s soccer program continues to rack up the BIG EAST Conference weekly awards, as the Irish produced three award winners for the second straight week: senior forward Meotis Erikson (offensive player of the week), sophomore Vanessa Pruzinsky (defensive player of the week) and freshman forward Amanda Guertin (rookie of the week).

During the past six weeks, Notre Dame-which posted wins last week at Georgetown (8-0) and Villanova (1-0)-has amassed 13 of 22 weekly BIG EAST awards for offensive player, defensive player and rookie (UConn is next with three, followed by Boston College and Georgetown with two each).

Due to the strong play in front of her, Irish junior Liz Wagner has been nominated just twice for BIG EAST goalkeeper of the week-when she totaled seven saves in the wins over Santa Clara and Stanford and when she totaled six saves in wins over Washington and Portland (Wagner has faced just 13 shots on goal over the course of ND’s other nine games).

The Irish have produced back-to-back BIG EAST offensive players of the week (senior midfielder Anne Makinen earned the honor last week) while Notre Dame players have collected six straight BIG EAST defensive player-of-the-week awards (including three by Kelly Lindsey and one by fellow senior Kerri Bakker, plus two by Pruzinsky).

Guertin is the third Irish freshman to be honored by the BIG EAST in as many weeks, following in the footsteps of fellow forward Amy Warner (a three-time honoree) and midfielder Randi Scheller.

Erikson (Kennewick, Wash.) posted her third career hat trick (and first since 1997) in the win at Georgetown on Oct. 6, scoring in a variety of ways while needing just four shots to accumulate the three goals. She is tied for sixth among BIG EAST scorers with 20 points (8 goals, 4 assists) and ranks as Notre Dame’s second-leading goalscorer, behind Makinen’s 10.

Erikson’s six-point game versus GU gives her 145 points for her career (54G-37A), moving into eighth on the ND all-time scoring list (she also ranks seventh in career goals and 11th in assists). Erikson is the 11th Irish player to post three-plus hat tricks in her career, with just four previous ND players turning in four-plus hat tricks.

Pruzinsky (Trumbull, Conn.) continued to play a leading role for the strong ND defense that allowed just four shots (two on goal) in each game of the weekend (plus just one corner kick for the weekend). She helped the Irish run their shutout streak to five straight games (nine overall). The Irish now have allowed 0-4 shots in nine games, including each of the last five.

The current five-game shutout streak has seen the Irish allow just 11 combined shots (five on goal) and three corner kicks. The shutout streak has spanned 483:10, dating back to West Virginia’s penalty kick on Sept. 22 (that’s the only goal allowed by ND in the last eight-plus games and 768 minutes). Notre Dame’s 0.30 team goals-against average (4 GA) is on pace to best the team record (0.36) set in 1997.

Guertin (Grapevine, Texas) scored twice in win at GU as the Irish coped with the absence of her injured classmate Warner. She became the first ND player other than Warner, Erikson or Makinen to score the first goal of a game this season-doing so in unassisted fashion, after picking off a GU pass and firing in a tough shot from long range.

Guertin is tied with Warner for third on the Irish squad in goals (7) while ranking 12th in the BIG EAST with 15 total points.