Nov. 18, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Notre Dame women’s soccer team – despite playing without its leading goalscorer, junior Brittany Bock – extending its unbeaten streak to 15 games while advancing in the NCAA Tournament with Sunday’s 2-0 victory over Illinois. The Irish next will add another chapter to their national rivalry with North Carolina, in an NCAA round-of-16 game at Fetzer Field on Saturday, Nov. 24, at noon. Notre Dame fan wishing to follow that game will be able to do so via an internet live-audio broadcast on und.com, as part of the free Irish All-Access offerings.
Notre Dame (17-4-2) has not lost since late September (14-0-1) while outscoring the opposition 44-6 in that 15-game span. This marks the 13th time in the past 15 seasons (1993-2007; all but ’01 and ’03) that Notre Dame has reached at least the round-of-16 in the NCAAs, matching Portland and Connecticut for the second-most final-16 appearances in that stretch (UNC has reached the final-16 every year since ’93).
The winner of the ND-UNC game will play host to a quarterfinal game on Nov. 30-Dec. 2, versus the winner of the Duke versus Indiana game in the round-of-16. North Carolina is the top seed in its quadrant of the bracket and Notre Dame is the fourth seed, with Sunday’s results seeing the quadrant’s second seed Purdue (edged in PKs by IU) and the third seed Georgia (lost 1-0 to Duke) both eliminated.
With Bock held out of action due to a minor injury, two other veteran frontrunners – senior Amanda Cinalli and sophomore Michele Weissenhofer – stepped up to the occasion by combining on the first goal midway through the opening half. Junior forward Kerri Hanks then forced an own-goal with her cross from the right side, giving the Irish a 2-0 lead shortly before the intermission.
Notre Dame finished with a 13-10 edge in total shots and 6-3 in shots on goal, with Illinois (12-7-2) attempting many of its shots in the late stages of the game after committing more players into the attack. Notre Dame’s eight-week unbeaten streak includes limiting the opponents to 99 shots (6.5/gm), 33 shots on goal (2.2) and 33 corner kicks (22). The Irish have trailed for only 72 minutes during the streak (5.2% of the time) and have not been behind since early in the regular-season finale at Rutgers (a span of 528 minutes without trailing).
The hosts played a strong first half and dominated the possession while creating several strong scoring chances. The first goal finally came in the 27th minute, on a play set up by sophomore Amanda Clark (who had checked into the game moments earlier). Clark played a ball forward to Cinalli, who ripped a shot from outside the top right corner of the box. An Illinois defender was able to deflect the ball early in its trajectory but the leftfooted Weissenhofer was in position to collect the rebound, near the center of the box but still 18 yards from the goal.
Weissenhofer – who had 18 goals as a freshman but has been slowed this season by injury – quickly sent her low shot inside the left post for her fifth goal of the season and first since late September. Cinalli (who has battled her own nagging injuries this season) and Weissenhofer had combined for no points in the previous nine games but each now looks to lend their veteran skills to next weekend’s challenge and future games that would follow if the Irish emerge with the third-round win.
The goal held up as the fifth postseason game-winner in Weissenhofer’s young career, tying Monica Gerardo for the most postseason GWGs ever by an Irish player (her three career GWGs in the NCAAs are one shy of that Gerardo record). Cinalli – who has four postseason GWGs of her own – now has totaled 26 career points in postseason play (10G-6A). Her 19 career points in the NCAAs (8G-3A) are tied for fifth in the Notre Dame record book, trailing only Katie Thorlakson (29), Hanks (28), Gerardo (24) and Anne Makinen (20).
Illinois nearly tied the game on a corner-kick header in the 42nd minute. All-American Ella Masser – who combined with Cinalli and Weissenhofer to help the U.S. Under-21 National Team win the 2007 Nordic Cup last summer – took the corner kick from the right flag and Jackie Santacaterina flicked a header from the top of the six-yard box. Senior goalkeeper Lauren Karas saw the play developing and turned in one of the biggest saves of her career, lunging back and to her right to snatch the ball at waist level and maintain the 1-0 lead.
Moments later, Hanks raced down the right side and played a low cross into the heart of the penalty area. Illinois defender Emily Zurrer was tracking back on the play but the pace of the cross was too strong, as Zurrer’s touch sent the ball to the right of her goalkeeper Lindsey Carstens and into the net (43:32). Notre Dame now has won 260 consecutive games when claiming a 2-0 lead, dating back to the 1991 season.
The Irish improved to 42-12-1 (.773) all-time in the NCAAs, including 34-3-0 at home (.919).
Notre Dame now is 29-3-0 in series openers during the nine-year Randy Waldrum era and the Irish now are 9-1-0 all-time when playing a series opener in the NCAAs. Illinois became the latest in a long string of visiting teams that have failed to beat the Irish in their first official game vs. ND at Alumni Field (teams are 4-44-1 in such games, dating back to 1993). Oklahoma State remains the only first-time visitor among the past 19 to leave with a win over Notre Dame.
Notes and quotes follow below, as does the game linescore.
NOTES: The round-of-16 games from the other quadrant on ND’s side of the bracket will include Texas at Florida State and UConn at Stanford … four of the eight seeded teams on ND’s half of the bracket failed to reach the round-of-16 (Texas A&M, Wake Forest, Purdue and Georgia) … next week’s matchups on the other side will include one quadrant with Virginia at UCLA and Tennessee at Portland while the other quadrant has a game next week between Florida at USC (plus the Hofstra/Penn State winner, to be played tomorrow due to a snow delay, vs. West Virginia) … the 17 remaining teams include four from the ACC and three each from the BIG EAST and Pac-10 conferences … Stanford and Florida both advanced on PKs (vs. Cal and UCF, respectively) … Hanks saw her point streak end at 13 games (one shy of tying Thorlakson’s ND record) but she still has points in 19 of 21 postseason games during her career … she also has points in 33 of the past 36 games (with a pair of 13-game point streaks, a 7-game point streak and no back-to-back games without a point in that span) … Weissenhofer, Clark, Bock and junior left back Elise Weber (all Chicago-area natives) had several past playing connections with various players on the Illinois team … Illinois became the eighth different Big Ten Conference team that ND has faced in the NCAAs (11-1-0 in those games) … the Irish now are 55-9-2 (.849) all-time vs. the Big Ten … ND is 14-2-0 this season when leading at halftime and 17-2-1 when outshooting the opponent … the Irish are 49-2-1 in their past 52 games when scoring first … ND owns a 35-8 scoring margin at home this season (only 23-13 in all road games) … the Irish have played 78 straight home games without being outshot (since early in the ’02 season) … ND is 53-9-0 in all series openers played at home and 49-6-0 in all series openers (home and away) since 1993 … senior M Ashley Jones has played in all 102 games during the past four seasons and is tied for ninth on the NCAA D-I list for career games played, behind her former ND teammate Jen Buczkowski (103), three former UNC players (Robin Confer 107; Rebekah McDowell 104; Cindy Parlow 103), former Penn State classmates Bonnie Young (104) and Megan Mills (1-3), UConn alum Jen Carlson (103) and former Nebraska `keeper Karina LeBlanc (103) … Cinalli (97) is tied with Kate Sobrero for 13th on the ND career GP charts (one out of 10th) … the only ND classmates with more combined career games played than Jones and Cinalli (199) are: Buczkowski and Christie Shaner (100) with 203 and Jenny Streiffer and Jen Grubb (each 100) with 200 … Karas dropped her career goals-against avg. to 0.57 and raised her career win pct. to .914 (52-4-2), both on pace to be ND records … she has a lowly 0.29 GAA during the 15-game unbeaten streak … ND’s 23 games this season have included 12 shutouts, 18 with 0-1 GA and 22 with 0-2 GA … Hanks (352) is four shots shy of tying the ND record for career shots (356, by Cindy Daws) … Hanks (13G-15A) and Bock (14G-3A) entered the day as one of the nation’s top-scoring duos … Clark has played in all 50 games over the past two seasons (as has Hanks) … ND and UNC’s senior classes own the most wins (89 each) in the nation over the past four seasons (no other team’s senior class has 80 or more career wins) … UNC’s Anson Dorrance (.942; 648-31-19) and ND’s Randy Waldrum (.774; 290-78-19) rank 1-2 among the list for highest career win pct. by active D-I head coaches.
ND HEAD COACH Randy Waldrum – “They needed a goal and put four in the midfield and it created some problems for us. … You’re always happy to win this time of the year but I was a little disappointed with our composure in the final 20 minutes. They’re a well-coached team. … If the game had been a little tighter and we needed Brittany, we would have put her in. But it was nice to get the two goals in the first half. … Our kids will be very excited to play next week. It’s a great place to play and they are a number-one seed. We played a very entertaining exhibition with them earlier this season. Both teams had some players missing back then and there have been some lineup changes, but this will be our third game with them in less than 12 months and hopefully it will be an entertaining day of soccer for the fans. It will be a difficult task trying to beat them on their field but our players will be fired up for the challenge. You have to beat good teams along the way to win the national championship, so we just take them as they come. … I think with those early losses this season, we had to respond by winning every game and so we’ve been chasing it. We’ve been hunting all year. … Lauren had a great save off that corner-kick in the first half and played very well this weekend. … In the first half, Cinalli was great for us. She lays it all on the line. She was really good at holding the ball today and that was really important. She can calm things down for the team with her play on the ball. When you have a player with 14 goals sitting on the bench, that takes a lot away from your team so you have to be happy with the win, while playing without a great player.”
ND SOPHOMORE FORWARD MICHELE WEISSENHOER – “Unfortunately, I have not been much of a goalscorer this season and have been wanting to help the team more in that area. I had some chances early in the first half. It was great to get the goal and get the win. I followed up to the ball and was able to knock it in. There was one similar to that earlier, but I missed it. … Bock can’t be replaced. She is such a good player. But you just need other players to step up. Cinalli and I both were injured earlier in the season, so it’s something the team is used to doing. … Next week is going to be a battle and both teams will need to work hard. … Illinois kept pushing more people up on top and our defensive players had to stay on top of things later in the game. We just wanted to get the ball cleared out as quick as possible. Lauren did a good job directing the defense. It was a great weekend for our defense.”
ND SENIOR FORWARD Amanda Cinalli – “Amanda Clark had just stepped on the field and made a great impact by playing the ball through to me. She put me into a space and I just shot it but the player deflected it and Michele followed it up with a hard shot. … Brittany is so passionate about the game. We missed her a lot but were able to get her some extra rest. But our team is so deep that we adapt really well and are able to have players fill in the gaps. … With being seeded lower, it just inspires us to work that much harder. Rankings never really mean that much to us, even when we are at the top of them. We just have to keep working hard and taking each game at a time. … Near the end of the game, Illinois was doing everything they could to try to score a goal. It was a little chaotic but we were just focusing on getting every ball out and staying on task for the full 90 minutes.”
Illinois (12-7-2) 0 0 – 0
Notre Dame (17-4-2) 2 0 – 2
ND 1. Michele Weissenhofer 5th of season/23rd of career (Amanda Cinalli) 26:34; ND 2. Own Goal 43:32
Shots: ILL 3-7 – 10, ND 6-7 – 13
Corner Kicks: ILL 3, ND 3
Saves: ILL 4 (Lindsey Carstens); ND 3 (Lauren Karas)
Fouls: ILL 11, ND 16
Offside: ILL 1, ND 4
Yellow Cards: Danielle Kot (ILL) 88:38; ND assistant coach (Ben Waldrum) 88:38