Feb. 28, 2007
Notre Dame, Ind. –
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• The Game: #5/#7 Notre Dame (2-0/0-0) vs. #1/#3 Northwestern (1-1/1-) in ALC)
• Date/Time/Site: Thursday., March 1, 2007 • 7:00 p.m. • Loftus Sports Center • Notre Dame, Ind.
• The Game: #5/#7 Notre Dame (2-0/0-0) at #11/#16 Cornell (0-1/0-0 in Ivy League)
• Date/Time/Site: Sunday., March 4, 2007 • 12:00 noon • Schoellkopf Field • Ithaca, N.Y.
IRISH TO FACE TWO RANKED TEAMS: The Notre Dame women’s lacrosse schedule moves into full gear this week with a pair of games against nationally ranked teams. On Thursday, March 1, the Irish play host to the #1/#3 Northwestern Wildcats in a 7:00 p.m. game at the Loftus Sports Center. They then take to the road for the first of four consecutive road games when the Irish travel to Ithaca, N.Y., to meet the #11/#16 Cornell Big Red on Sunday, March 4 in a 12:00 noon contest. Notre Dame enters the week with a 2-0 record after recording overtime wins against James Madison and Stanford. Northwestern comes into Thursday night’s game with a 1-1 overall record and a 1-0 mark in the American Lacrosse Conference. Cornell opened the season with an 11-10 overtime loss last weekend to Rutgers and will face Colgate at home on Wed., Feb. 28 before facing Notre Dame. Following this week’s acton, the Irish travel to Buffalo, N.Y., to meet Canisisu on Saturday, March 10 in a 12:00 noon game.
IRISH VERSUS WILDCATS: Notre Dame and Northwestern continue their Midwest rivalry, meeting for the seventh time in the all-time series on Thursday night at the Loftus Center. The Wildcats, the two-time defending national champions, have a 4-2 edge in the first six meetings of the series and have won four straight meetings. Last season, the two teams met at Northwestern with the Wildcats taking a 21-12 victory in Evanston, Ill. The Irish led at halftime in the game, 9-8, but were outscored 13-3 in the second half. At Notre Dame, the Irish are 1-1 in the series while going 1-3 in four games at Northwestern.
IRISH VERSUS BIG RED: Notre Dame and Cornell have met six times in the all-time series, with two meetings in 2006, including an NCAA first round game. The Irish won both games in 2006, taking a 17-15 game in the regular season and then a 16-8 win in the NCAA tournament to even the series record at 3-3. The win in the NCAA tournament marked the 200th win of Notre Dame head coach Tracy Coyne’s career. Notre Dame is 3-1 at home against Cornell but has never won a game in Ithaca, N.Y., where the record stands at 0-2. The last time the Irish played at Cornell was March 6, 2005 where they dropped an 11-8 decision to the Big Red.
HEAD COACH Tracy Coyne: Tracy Coyne is in her 11th season at Notre Dame and 20th year in collegiate lacrosse. Coyne brings a 203-90 (.693) career record into the Northwestern game and is 89-64 (.582) in this, her 11th season at Notre Dame. The 1983 graduate of Ohio University recorded her 200th career win last season in the first round of the NCAA tournament in a 16-8 win against Cornell. She has guided Notre Dame to three NCAA tournament appearances (2002, 2004, 2006), including last year’s first-ever trip to the NCAA finals. In her first 19 years of coaching, Coyne was 23-5 in two seasons at Denison (1988-89), 91-21 in seven years at Roanoke (1990-96) and 87-64 in 10 seasons at Notre Dame. The Pittsburgh, Pa., native led Denison (1988) and Roanoke (1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996) to the NCAA Division III tournament during stops at those schools. Coyne also has coached on the international level as the head coach for the Canadian women’s lacrosse national team from 1999-2005. In June of 2005, she led Team Canada to a fourth-place finish at the 2005 World Cup, her second fourth-place finish (2001) as Canada’s field boss. Coyne owns a 2-4 all-time record against Northwestern and is 3-3 all-time versus Cornell.
STANFORD RECAP: The Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team enjoys playing the game so much that they aren’t happy playing just 60 minutes, so they play overtime every chance they get. That was the case on Feb. 24 when, for the second time this season, the Irish went to overtime, defeating #18 Stanford, 12-11 in two extra sessions. Junior Caitlin McKinney (Lafayette Hill, Pa.) paced the Notre Dame attack with six goals and one assist, including the game-winning goal with seven seconds left. Jillian Byers (So., Northport, N.Y.) added three goals and Heather Ferguson (Jr., Newtown Square, Pa.), Kaki Orr (Sr., Darien, Conn.) and Lena Zentgraf (Sr., Charlottesville, Va.) had single goals for the Irish. Sophomore goalkeeper Erin Goodman (Cortlandt Park, N.Y.) made six saves in picking up her second win of the year. The two teams were tied 8-8 at halftime and the Irish fell behind by an 11-9 count with 7:38 left in the game. McKinney’s fifth goal with 7:10 left cut the Stanford lead to 11-10 and she then set up Zentgraf’s goal with 4:02 left to make it 11-11. The two teams played a scoreless first overtime and with time running out (seven seconds remaining), McKinney beat Laura Shane from in close for the winning goal.
FOR OPENERS: Notre Dame’s home-opening win over Stanford improves the Irish to 7-4 all-time in home openers. Overall, Notre Dame is 9-2 in season-opening games after defeating James Madison in the season opener on Feb. 18.
OVERTIME NUMBERS: The Irish seem to play their share of overtime and one-goal games. Both games this season have gone to extra time. On Feb. 18 at James Madison, the team’s played 68:44 before Jillian Byers scored in sudden victory of the Irish. On Feb. 24, Notre Dame and Stanford played overtime for the second year in a row. This time, Caitlin McKinney scored with seven seconds left for the win. In 2006, the Irish were 1-1 in two sudden-victory games, losing at Georgetown (11-10) after winning a 12-11 game at Stanford. Notre Dame has now played 13 overtime games in their 11 seasons and are 6-7 in thos games. Over the last two seasons, the Irish are 6-2 in one goal games and 13-16 in the program’s history.
BIG EAST OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Junior attack standout Caitlin McKinney was selected as the BIG EAST offensive player of the week for the week ending Feb. 25. In two games, McKinney had eight goals and one assist for nine points. Included was a career-best, six-goal, seven-point game in the 12-11 overtime win versus Stanford on Feb. 24. In that game, McKinney scored the game winner with seven seconds left. She opened the season with a pair of goals in the sudden-victory win at James Madison on Feb. 18.
HOME RECORD: Notre Dame’s 12-11 win over Stanford on Feb. 24 extended the Irish home win streak to 10 straight games. The Irish were 9-0 for the 2006 season at the Loftus Center and Moose Krause Stadium. That was the best home record the Irish have ever had in the first 10 seasons of the program. The previous best was an 8-2 season in 2002.
TEWAARATON WATCH LIST: Sophomore Jillian Byers and junior Caitlin McKinney have been named to the 2007 Tewaaraton “Watch List.” They are among 34 Division I players, selected by a panel of coaches from around the country, eligible for women’s collegiate lacrosse’s top player award. The current duo join Crysti Foote `06 and Meredith Simon `04 who were named to the “Watch List” in 2006 and 2004 respectively. Foote went on to become one of five finalists for last seasons’ award.
NICE START: Sophomore Jillian Byers wasted little time getting her second season at Notre Dame off to a strong start in the win at James Madison. The talented attack player equaled her career best, netting six goals in the 10-9 sudden-death overtime win. After getting just one goal in the first half, the Northport, N.Y., native scored three goals in the second half, added a fifth in the second overtime and then got the game winner with 16 seconds left in the third overtime. In the win versus Stanford, Byers followed up with three goals. She is tied for the team lead in scoring with nine points (all goals) this year. As a freshman, Byers had six goals in a game against Vanderbilt on May 7. She had 54 goals and 24 assists for 78 points in her rookie season.
LEAN ON LENA: Senior midfielder Lena Zentgraf returned to the starting lineup versus James Madison and had a pair of assists in the sudden-victory win. She followed that with a three-point game in the win over Stanford and is third on the team in scoring with a goal and four assists. Zentgraf leads Notre Dame with seven draw controls, grabbing a career-best five in the win over Stanford.
IRISH STREAKS: Four Notre Dame players bring point streaks into the game with Northwestern. They are:
Caitlin McKinney -24-game streak (58-24-82)
Heather Ferguson – 15 games (21-12-33)
Jillian Byers – 2 games (9-0-9)
Lena Zentgraf – 2 games (1-4-5)
TRADING CARDS: In Notre Dame’s game with Stanford, the two teams combined for 10 yellow cards, one green card and one red card. Notre Dame was called for seven yellow cards while Stanford had three yellows, one red and had a green card for delay of game assessed. The two teams were called for 40 fouls, Notre Dame 17 and Stanford 23.
GIVING THEM FITZ: Senior defender Meaghan Fitzpatrick (Farmingdale, N.Y.) opened the season with a strong game at James Madison. Fitzpatrick had three ground balls, two draw controls and a team-high four caused turnovers.
BIG EAST SCHOLARSHIP: Senior Meghan Murphy (Centennial, Colo.) along with Irish swimmer Ted Brown, has been selected as one of Notre Dame’s two BIG EAST post-graduate scholarship winners. The $2,000 scholarship goes toward post-graduate studies. Murphy has already been accepted to medical school. She was the women’s lacrosse team’s 2006 Rockne Scholar-Athlete and was also selected to the 2006 IWLCA Academic honor roll with a 3.74 grade-point average in her double major in anthropology and pre-professional studies. She was a third team ESPN The Magazine/CoSida Academic All-American on the spring at-large team in 2006. Murphy was also selected as one of Notre Dame’s Christopher Zorich Award winners for her involvement in community service work in the Notre Dame community and her home town of Denver, Colo.
PRESEASON ALL-AMERICANS: Three members of the 2007 Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team have been selected to the Inside Lacrosse Magazine preseason All-American team. Attack standouts Jillian Byers and Caitlin McKinney have been selected to the preseason second team while defender Meaghan Fitzpatrick (Sr., Farmingdale, N.Y.) was a third team selection. Byers and McKinney were both selected as third team All-Americans at the end of the 2006 season by Inside Lacrosse.
PRESEASON HONORS: Three members of the Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team have been selected to the preseason all-BIG EAST team. Senior defender Meaghan Fitzpatrick, junior midfielder/attack Caitlin McKinney and sophomore attack Jillian Byers were named to the 2007 team with McKinney and Byers being unanimous selections. Fitzpatrick, a 2006 second team all-BIG EAST selection, is a three-year starter on defense who started all 19 games last season, grabbing 39 ground balls while causing 20 turnovers. McKinney was a first team all-BIG EAST selection last year and a third team IWLCA All-American after scoring 42 goals with 22 assists for 64 points. Byers also was a first team all-BIG EAST choice and a second team IWLCA All-American while scoring 54 goals and 24 assists for 78 points, the second-best single-season totals and freshman records at Notre Dame.
HELPING HAND: Junior Heather Ferguson (Newtown Square, Pa.) assisted on three goals in Notre Dame’s 10-9 win over James Madison. The three assists equaled a career high set March 25, 2006 against Canisius. She recorded her first goal of the season in the 12-11 win over Stanford, Ferguson is coming off a break out season in 2006 when she finished fourth in scoring with 25 goals and 11 assists for 36 points, all career highs.
CLUTCH PERFORMER: Junior Caitlin McKinney was held to two goals in the win over James Madison but they both came at crucial times in the game. Trailing 7-6 with time running out in regulation, McKinney scored with 19 seconds left to tie the game at 7-7 and send the game to overtime. Her second goal came in the second overtime. With Notre Dame trailing 9-8, McKinney tied the game with nine seconds left to make it 9-9 and send the game to sudden death.
GOOD FOR GOODMAN: Sophomore goalkeeper Erin Goodman made her first collegiate start versus James Madison and recorded her first career win. She surrendered nine goals in the game, making seven saves in the victory. The win came in her third career appearance. She saw action in two games as a freshman in relief of Carol Dixon `05, playing just over 48 minutes. Goodman made six saves in Notre Dame’s 12-11 win over Stanford. She is 2-0 with an 8.91 goals-against average this season.
DRAWING IT UP: Senior midfielder Kaki Orr (Darien, Conn.) set a Notre Dame single-game record with nine draw controls in the win over Vanderbilt on May 7. She was second on the team with 41 draw controls in 2006, the second-best single-season total at Notre Dame. She opened the season with one draw control against James Madison. For her career, Orr now has 60 draw controls.
QUICKEST TO 100: Junior speedster Caitlin McKinney reached 100 points faster than any player in Notre Dame history in 2006 when she scored her 100th point (67g-33a) in the 33rd game of her career. In 36 career games, McKinney has 78 goals and 35 assists for 113 career points. After two seasons, she already ranks in the top 10 in several offensive categories. McKinney is sixth in goals (78), sixth in assists (35) and sixth in points (113).
TURNAROUND SEASON: Notre Dame’s dramatic turnaround from 2005 (3-12) to 2006 (15-4), a +10 differential, is the largest turnaround in NCAA women’s lacrosse history, according to the NCAA record book. The previous biggest changes were seven-game turnarounds by American University (0-14 in 1996 to 8-8 in 1997) and Holy Cross (4-12 in 2000 to 13-7 in 2001). Notre Dame also turned the tables in BIG EAST play, going 4-1 last season and finishing second after going 1-4 in 2005 and finishing in fifth place.
RECORD-SETTING CAMPAIGN: Notre Dame’s 2006 season was a record-setting campaign. The Irish set team records for wins (15), goals (263), assists (144), points (407) and draw controls (273). Crysti Foote set individual team records for goals (74), assists (40), points (114) and draw controls (44).
SISTER ACTS: Notre Dame has had eight sets of sisters in the program’s 11-year history and has two sets on this year’s team. Heading the group are twin sisters, juniors Heather and Lindsey Ferguson (Newtown Square, Pa.). They are joined by senior Lena Zentgraf and her younger sister Maggie (Charlottesville, Va.). Three other members of this year’s team have sisters who played at Notre Dame. Junior Julie Foote (Suffern, N.Y.) was preceded by her sister, Crysti `06 while sophomores Lauren deMello (Manlius, N.Y.) and Kelly Gaudreau (Annapolis, Md.) were preceeded by sisters Meghan deMello `06 and Kristen Gaudreau `04. Other sisters duos to play for the Irish include: Carol `06 and Angela `03 Dixon and Mary `06 and Annemarie McGrath. The sisters that started the tradition are Amy (`98) and Mara (`98) Grace. They each played in the first two seasons of the program.
THE KID WAS ALRIGHT: Sophomore attack standout Jillian Byers turned in an outstanding rookie season in 2006. Byers set Notre Dame freshmen records for goals (54), assists (24) and points (78) in a season. Her 78 points were the second-best point total in the program’s history, trailing Crysti Foote (114 in 2006). Her 54 goals trailed just Foote’s 74 set in 2006. Byers was selected as a unanimous first team all-BIG EAST selection in her freshman year, a first for any Notre Dame rookie. She was named a second team IWLCA and womenslacrosse.com All-American and a third team Inside Lacrosse Magazine All-American. She owns the freshman record for points in a game with nine points (5g, 4a) versus Lehigh. Her nine-point game also tied an Irish record for points in a home game, matching the nine points recorded by Kerry Callahan `99 (6g, 3a) on March 24, 1997 versus Stanford and Lael O’Shaughnessy `01 (6g, 3a) on March 28, 1999 vs. Connecticut.
HAMMER TIME: Junior midfielder Mary Carpenter (Rochester, N.Y.) was selected second team all-BIG EAST for the 2006 season after turning in a strong year at midfield. In 19 games, Carpenter had career highs in goals (12), assists (10), points (20), ground balls (51), draw controls (30) and caused turnovers (23). She led the team in ground balls, tied for third in draw controls and was second in caused turnovers. Her 51 ground balls were the sixth-best single-season total for the Irish. In the season opener against James Madison, Carpenter had two ground balls, one draw control and two caused turnovers.
GETTING IT DONE ON AND OFF THE FIELD: Senior Meghan Murphy (Centennial, Colo.) who finished fifth in scoring with the Irish (14g, 9a) in 2006 was just as successful off the field. The winner of Notre Dame’s Rockne Scholar-Athlete Award, Murphy was a third team ESPN The Magazine/CoSida Academic All-American with a 3.70 grade-point average with a double major in anthropology and pre-professioan studies. She has already been accepted to medical school for the fall of 2007. Murphy also received the prestigious Christopher Zorich Award at Notre Dame’s annual O.S.C.A.R.S. awards program. The award was created in 1998 to recognize the contributions of Notre Dame student-athletes to the University and community at large. The award holds the name of Christopher Zorich, a two-time football All-American and 1991 graduate. He went on to play in the National Football League for both the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins and received his law degree from Notre Dame in 2002. Murphy has been involved in community service work during her three seasons at Notre Dame. She organized the team’s community service work this season and has been involved with the YWCA Women’s Shelter Spring Cleaning, the Cavanaugh/Zahm Winter Carnival and several projects at the Center for the Homeless, including cooking and serving meals, spending time at Thanksgiving with the children and helping coordinate a shoebox assembly first as part of a class project and then as a Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) project that delivered several carloads of personal-use items for use at the Center. Working with children has been a focus for Murphy as she has been involved with holiday parties for kids at both the St. Joseph’s Pediatric and Memorial Hospital Pediatric wings, as well as, Notre Dame’s annual Christmas Pediatric Party. In October of 2006, she helped organize a trip with Notre Dame students to go to New Orleans over fall break to assist in the recovery of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
THE DEFENSE RESTS: Notre Dame’s terrific trio on defense – Meaghan Fitzpatrick (Sr., Farmingdale, N.Y.), Kristin Hopson (Sr., Rosemont, Pa.) and Becky Ranck (Jr., Radnor, Pa.) returns for their third season together. The threesome combined for 86 ground balls, 39 draw controls and 64 caused turnovers during the 2006 season. They helped the Irish hold the opposition to less than 10 goals per game. In the opener at James Madison, the threesome collected four ground balls and five draw controls. Hopson had a big draw control in the second overtime that helped set up Notre Dame’s game-tying goal.