Oct. 27, 2006
Former Notre Dame All-America goalkeeper Jen Renola – who headlined Notre Dame’s 18 shutouts during the 1995 NCAA championship season (including all six postseason games) – recently was named by the NCAA to its version of the Division I Women’s Soccer 25th Anniversary Team, recognizing 11 former student-athletes for their outstanding achievements while participating in NCAA competition. Renola was one of several former Irish greats who could have been named to the elite squad, which coincidentally includes players from all six of the teams that have won NCAA championships.
Renola was selected by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America as its 1996 national player of the year and she went on to receive several other noteworthy honors, including the prestigious NCAA Top VIII award that annually recognizes a group of high-achieving student-athletes (that exclusive group of eight honorees spans all sports and all divisions). She became the first Notre Dame student-athlete ever to receive the Top VIII Award, which honors excellence in athletics, academics and leadership. Renola also was recognized by the BIG EAST Conference as its 1996-97 Scholar-Athlete of the Year (for all sports) and similarly was honored by the College Sports Information Directors of America as the Academic All-American of the Year for 1996-97 fall and winter “at-large” sport. She went on to graduate in 1997 with a 3.67 cumulative grade-point average as a double major in English and computer applications, later becoming the first Notre Dame women’s soccer player to be awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.
In addition to being a three-time All-American and the 1996 NSCAA national player of the year, Jen Renola received the NCAA’s prestigious Top VIII Award and was selected by CoSIDA as an Academic All-American of the Year.
|
 |
A starter in all 98 games of her Notre Dame career, Renola allowed just 62 goals (0.69 goals-against average) while helping post 62 shutouts (32 solo) and leading the Irish to an 87-8-3 record during that 1993-96 span. Her career highlights include saving all 11 shots she faced during a 1994 scoreless tie versus North Carolina (played in St. Louis), halting one of the longest winning streaks in the history of collegiate sports at 92 games. One year later, Renola helped shut out UNC in the 1995 NCAA semifinals (1-0) – snapping the Tar Heels’ eight-year run as national champions and avenging Notre Dame’s loss from the 1994 NCAA title game. She was named to the NCAA Championship all-tournament team for the second straight year in 1995 and earned that honor again as a member of the 1996 NCAA runner-up squad.
Notre Dame has produced some of the most accomplished midfielders – most notably Cindy Daws, Holly Manthei, Jenny Streiffer (who played forward later in her career) and Anne Makinen – in the history of collegiate women’s soccer but the NCAA’s self-described “expert panel” that selected the anniversary team produced a unique 11-player grouping that includes six forwards, only two midfielders, a pair of defenders and Renola as the goalkeeper. Other former Notre Dame greats who rank among the best in NCAA history include defender Jen Grubb and forward Katie Thorlakson.
Daws, Makinen and Thorlakson all collected national player-of-the-year honors and Daws went on to receive the prestigious Honda Broderick Cup, recognizing the three-time All-American as the nation’s most outstanding female athlete (from all sports) during the 1996-97 academic year. The 30-year history of the Broderick Cup has included just two other recipients from women’s soccer – former North Carolina great Mia Hamm and recent Portland standout Christine Sinclair – and both of those players were members of the NCAA anniversary team. Daws also received the 1996 Hermann Trophy and Missouri Athletic Club player-of-the-year awards, with Makinen later sweeping both awards in 2000 (when she likewise was named Soccer America‘s national player of the year, an honor she earlier earned in ’98). Thorlakson was named Soccer America‘s national player of the year as a junior, after earning College Cup MVP honors for the 2004 national championship team, and she then was runner-up to Sinclair for the 2005 Hermann/M.A.C. awards.
Jen Renola saved all 11 shots she faced in a 1994 scoreless tie versus UNC – halting one of the longest winning streaks in the history of collegiate sports (92 games) – and shut out the Tar Heels again in the 1995 NCAA semifinals, ending UNC’s eight-year NCAA title run.
|
|
Streiffer, a two-time NSCAA All-American and two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, remains one of two Division I players ever to reach 70 career goals and 70 assists (70G-71A; Hamm is the other), while Daws holds distinction as one of five all-time 60G-60A players in D-I history (61G-67A). There are just 18 all-time Division I players to reach 50 goals and 50 assists and four have played for Notre Dame: Streiffer, Daws, Makinen (65G-56A) and Thorlakson (55G-73A).
Manthei (129) – who was the Honda Award winner for women’s soccer in 1997 and thus was among the finalits for the ’97-’98 Broderick Cup – and Thorlakson (73) rank 1-2 among the NCAA career assist leaders and also occupy the top two spots for assists in a season (Manthei 44 in ’96; Thorlakson 35 in ’05). Hamm is the only player ever to total more goals and more assists in a season than Thorlakson’s 2004 totals (23G-24A). Grubb is one of just four Division I defenders ever to be a four-year NSCAA All-American, with Manthei and Makinen also belonging to the exclusive group of 22 total players who have been four-year NSCAA All-Americans. Makinen is part of an even shorter list of five all-time D-I players who have the dual distinction of being four-year All-Americans and reaching the 50G-50A milestone.
Daws (26G-20A, in ’96) and Thorlakson (23G-24A, in ’04) are two of just 10 players in D-I history to reach 20 goals and 20 assists in the same season. Makinen was a four-year finalist for national player-of-the-year honors and averaged 2.09 points per game during her career, at one point reaching 100 career points in just 40 games (tying Streiffer’s ND record). Grubb was a three-year national player-of-the-year finalist and owns the most career points (83) ever by a Notre Dame defender (20th overall). Her 53 career assists rank seventh in the Irish record book and 20th in NCAA history, despite playing her entire career in the defensive third.
Since 1994, Notre Dame players have combined for NSCAA All-America honors 35 times, narrowly trailing UNC (38) for the most All-Americans in the nation during that 13-year span (Portland is a distant third, with 25).
Jen Renola (back row, third from right) was one of several Irish players who returned to campus in the spring of 2005 for the 10-year reunion of the 1995 NCAA championship team. Also pictured are NCAA all-time assist leader Holly Manthei (back row, far left) and current USA National Team midfielder Shannon Boxx (back row, third from left).
|
|
Most of the players named to the anniversary team have gone on to prominent post-college playing careers with the U.S. National Team program, a level of added visibility not afforded to Renola and the other former Irish players referenced above. The anniversary team also includes three players whose entire career came during the 1980s – a decade which ended with just 75 schools sponsoring Division I women’s soccer (only 54 played the sport in 1985). By the time Renola’s senior season rolled around in 1996, there were 217 women’s soccer teams on the D-I level and that number had swelled to 274 by Makinen’s final season in 2000. Thorlakson completed her career in 2005 by competing against a national field that included 305 D-I teams.
Per the official NCAA release, an “expert panel affiliated with soccer” selected the anniversary team. The panel “consisted of soccer historians and athletics administrators” and “used historical data and results from online public voting at www.ncaasports.com to make its decision.” The online voting was available for only a few days on the NCAA website and was not widely publicized.
The NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer 25th Anniversary Celebration event will be held the night of Thursday, Nov. 30, at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, N.C. The 25th anniversary celebration is a free event that will commemorate the history of the NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship and showcase former and current collegiate women’s soccer student-athletes, coaches and key moments throughout the evening. Members of the anniversary team also will be honored during the NCAA College Cup final weekend in nearby Cary, N.C., with that ceremony set to take place on Friday, Dec. 1 (the day of the semifinals).
Renola – who currently is a volunteer assistant coach with the University of Texas women’s soccer team – recently provided the following comments via the Texas athletics website: “It’s definitely a big honor. Being named to the team is definitely something that I am proud of and very excited about. It is hard to swallow because this is an elite group. Even though I haven’t played in 10 years, this was just a nice way to be recognized. At Notre Dame, I was surrounded by great teammates and a great coach [Chris Petrucelli]. I was very fortunate to have been in the right place and the right time and on a team with great athletes.”
She also told the Austin American-Statesman: “It’s definitely a great honor to be named to a team with the likes of the people on that team. I think I’m the only one on that list that hasn’t played in an Olympics or World Cup.”
Jen Renola accepts the prestigious NCAA Top VIII Award at the 1997 NCAA convention, in recognition of her all-around athletic, academic and leadership excellence.
|
|
The six forwards named to the anniversary team include three from North Carolina – April Heinrichs (’83-’86), Kristine Lilly (’89-’92) and Hamm (’89-’90, ’92-’93) – plus mid-1980s George Mason player Lisa Gmitter (’83-’86), Danielle Garrett Fotopoulos (who played at SMU from ’94-’96 and Florida in ’98), and Portland’s Sinclair (’01-’02, ’04-’05). The midfielders who were selected over the likes of Daws, Manthei, Streiffer and Makinen include UNC’s Tisha Venturini (’91-’94) and Santa Clara’s Aly Wagner (’99-’02). Former North Carolina players Carla Werden Overbeck (’86-’89) and Cat Reddick (’00-’03) were the only defenders named to the 25-year team.
Jen Renola started all 98 games spanning the 1993-96 seasons, helping the Irish compile an 87-8-3 record during that span while winning the 1995 NCAA title and reaching the title game in ’94 and ’96.
|
|
Renola – who served alonside Daws as the Irish team co-captains in 1995 and ’96 – was named to Soccer America‘s Freshman All-America team in 1993 before collecting NSCAA All-America honors in each of her final three seasons. She ranks second in NCAA history with 8,111 career minutes played and is 16th on the NCAA list for career goals-against average (0.69, third-best at ND). One of only nine Notre Dame players to start every game of her career (98), Renola ranks first among the program’s all-time goalkeepers in career victories (87-8-3), win percentage (.903) and total shutouts (62; 32 of them solo). Her .812 career save percentage ranks third-best in the Irish record book.
After graduating from Notre Dame, Renola served as the West Coast promotions manager for adidas America from 1997-99. The Los Gatos, Calif., native later was an assistant coach at Texas from 1999-2003 and returned to the Longhorns staff this season as a volunteer assistant. She received a master’s in kinesiology (specializing in sport management) from Texas in 2002 and has earned an NSCAA national coaching diploma as well as a USSF national C coaching license. Renola served as the goalkeepers coach for the U.S. Under-17 National Team at the 2003 U.S. Soccer Festival.