March 2, 2006
Notre Dame, Ind. – The Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team opened the 2006 schedule in grand fashion on Thursday afternoon at the Loftus Center as the 17th-ranked Irish rolled over Ohio University by an 18-6 score.
Senior captain Crysti Foote (Suffern, N.Y.) continued her amazing start to the season by scoring four goals, including the 100th of her career, and adding four assists for eight points in the game. Through the first three games of the season, Foote already as 16 goals and seven assists for 23 points.
Foote received outstanding support from freshman Jill Byers (Northport, N.Y.) with three goals and two assists, senior Brittany Fox (Annapolis, Md.), who had three goals in a 1:49 span in the second half while Caitlin McKinney (So., Lafayette Hill, Pa.) and Meghan Murphy (Jr., Centennial, Colo.) added two goals each. Frannie Sullivan paced the Bobcats with two goals while Shannon Hadaway, Kiersten McLouth, Katie Smith and Kelley Windle had single goals.
The win improved Notre Dame to 3-0 on the season and equals the total win output for the Irish from a season ago. Ohio University falls to 1-3 in the young season.
Foote got the Irish off to a fast start, scoring her first goal just 34 seconds into the game. That was her 100th career goal, making her just the fourth player in the 10-year history of the program to have 100 goals in their career.
Notre Dame would build the lead to 5-0 with 13:31 on goals by Byers, Heather Ferguson (So., Newtown Square, Pa.), Jane Stoeckert (Fr., Mendham, N.J.) and Murphy before the Bobcats would break through on Irish goalkeeper Carol Dixon (Sr., Pennsauken, N.J.).
Katie Smith picked up her third goal of the season for Ohio at 11:34 to make it 5-1. Byers answered back with her second goal of the day at 10:53 before Sullivan cut the lead to 6-2 with her first of the game. Mary Carpenter (So., Rochester, N.Y.) and Murphy built the lead to 8-2 with under seven minutes left.
Ohio cut Notre Dame’s lead to 8-4 at halftime as Windle and Sullivan scored in the final 4:21 of the first half.
The two teams traded early second-half goals with Foote scoring a 26:45 and Hadaway at 25:11 to make it 9-5 before the Irish offense kicked into high gear, running off nine of the last 10 goals of the night.
The lead would go to 14-5 with 12:28 as Notre Dame scored five straight goals (Byers, Foote, Murphy, McKinney and Foote again) to build the lead to nine goals.
The Bobcats got their final goal of the game with 9:38 left on a free-position shot before Fox would run off her first three goals of the season between 5:14 and 3:25 to make it 17-6.
Julie Foote (So., Suffern, N.Y.), Crysti’s younger sister, got into the scoring act with her first career goal with 17 seconds left. That gives the Foote sisters 104 career goals, the most of any of Notre Dame’s seven sets of sisters, during the program’s 10 years.
The Irish out shot Ohio by a 43-22 margin in the game. Dixon made seven saves for Notre Dame while Jen Heup had 15 stops for the Bobcats.
Notre Dame returns to action on Sunday, March 5 when the Irish play host to No. 18 Cornell at the Loftus Sports Center. Game time is 12:00 noon. The Big Red are 1-0 on the season.
IRISH NOTES:
** With 103 career goals, Crysti Foote now ranks fourth on Notre Dame’s all-time goal list. She trails Meredith Simon `04 (109), Lael O’Shaughnessy `01 (122) and Danielle Shearer `03 (130).
** The win over Ohio University, head coach Tracy Coyne’s alma mater, improved the Irish to 7-0 all-time versus the Bobcats.
** The Irish have scored 53 goals in their first three games this season. That’s an average of 17.67 per game. Notre Dame’s best goal-scoring season ever was 1997 when the Irish averaged 13.56 per game.
** Sophomore Caitlin Lucas (Baldwin, N.Y.) saw the first action of her career versus Ohio and assisted on Julie Foote’s first career goals in the final minute of the game.
Game Summary: 1 2 - FOhio University (1-3) 4 2 - 6Notre Dame (3-0) 8 10 - 18SCORING
First Half ScoringTeam Time Score Goal AssistND 29:26 1-0 Crysti Foote (13)ND 22:50 2-0 Jill Byers (11)ND 15:36 3-0 Heatherr Ferguson (2)ND 13:53 4-0 Jane Stoeckert (2) Caitlin McKinneyND 13:31 5-0 Meghan Murphy (3) Crysti FooteOU 11:34 5-1 Katie Smith (3) Shannon HadawayND 10:53 6-1 Jill Byers (12) Kaki OrrOU 9:54 6-2 Frannie Sullivan (1)ND 8:49 7-2 Mary Carpenter (2) Meghan MurphyND 6:45 8-2 Caitlin McKinney (6) Crysti FooteOU 4:21 * 8-3 Kelly Windle (1) Free-position shotOU 0:06 8-4 Frannie Sullivan (2)
Second Half ScoringTeam Time Score Goal AssistND 26:45 9-4 Crysti Foote (14) Jill ByersOU 25:11 * 9-5 Shannon Hadaway (4) Free-position shotND 19:18 10-5 Jill Byers (13)ND 17:46 11-5 Crysti Foote (15)ND 17:26 12-5 Meghan Murphy (4) Caitlin McKinneyND 14:50 13-5 Caitlin McKinney (7) Crysti FooteND 12:28 14-5 Crysti Foote (16) Jill ByersOU 9:38 * 14-6 Kiersten McLouth (5) Free-position shotND 5:14 * 15-6 Brittany Fox (1) Free-position shotND 5:02 16-6 Brittany Fox (2) Crysti FooteND 3:25 17-6 Brittany Fox (3) Heather FergusonND 0:17 18-6 Julie Foote (1) Caitlin Lucas
* denotes free position goal
GoalkeepersOU: Jen Heup (60:00 min; 18 goals against; 15 saves)ND: Carol Dixon (60:00 min; 6 goals against; 7 saves)
Shots On Goal: OU - 22; ND - 43Ground balls: OU - 15; ND - 20Draw Controls: OU - 4; ND - 21Caused Turnovers: OU - 8; ND - 11