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Irish Win Big Over Central Michigan

SOUTH BEND, Ind. –  The Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team took a dominant win over the Central Michigan Chippewas on Sunday afternoon with a 24-5 victory. 

The Irish had eleven players tally goals and had Anna Kenney, Kasey Choma, Mary Kelly Doherty, and Jackie Wolak earn hat tricks. Wolak led the Irish with six points in total with four goals and two assists.

“I am so proud that we saw our team, you know, we had a quick turnaround from Northwestern and out of that turnaround we focused on a couple of areas of efficiency in scoring and shooting. So to see us shoot the ball better than fifty percent today against two lefties was great to see. Also, we really took care of business in the draw control, that’s an area of strength we are seeing,” said head coach Chris Halfpenny.

“Today we were able to see our second line offense come in and do a lot of damage. There were 15 total goal scorers, that’s really a big deal. It allows us to pocket some timeouts and utilize our depth and experience.”

Kelly Denes added to her draw control tally picking up seven draws throughout the day. 

“We tightened up areas of our defense, it was great to see all of that come together with that high of a clip of caused turnovers and then having defense turn into offense.”

On the defensive end the Irish caused 17 turnovers and picked up 19 ground balls. Doherty led the Irish with five caused turnovers and three ground balls.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Things started out fairly even when the Irish got on the board first with a goal from Kristen Shanahan that was then answered immediately by Central Michigan. The Irish took off with nine unanswered goals from Anna Kenney, Hannah Dorney, Jane McAvoy, Choma and Ahern to finish off the quarter with a 10-1 lead. 

The second quarter was much of the same story as Wolak, Mary Kelly Doherty, Denes, and Kenney tallied Notre Dame’s five goals of the quarter. The Irish went into the half with a 15-1 lead. The third quarter had the Irish expand the lead even further with goals from Shanahan, Wolak, McAvoy, Doherty, and Choma to take a 21-2 lead. At the end of the quarter eight players scored two or more goals.

Notre Dame closed out the game with a great defensive effort as they only allowed two more goals from Central Michigan. They also put up a great final effort on offense as Kenney and Abby Maichin tallied goals for a final score of 23-4.

STATS OF THE GAME

  • Anna Kenney tallied her first career goal in the first quarter of the game. She went on to score 3 goals in the contest.
  • Franny O’Brien earned her first goal of her career.
  • Wolak, Doherty, and Choma all tallied hat tricks in the game.

NOTRE DAME NOTES

  • With the win, the Irish will have posted their third straight win over Central Michigan with at least 20 goals.
  • Anna Kenney claimed her first career goal in the first quarter of the matchup. She went on to tally three goals for her first hat trick of the season.
  • O’Brien tallied her first career goal in the fourth quarter of the game.
  • 15 players recorded points, and eight players scored two or more goals in the win over Central Michigan.
  • Jackie Wolak tallied her ninth hat trick of her career, and matched her career high for goals in a game with four
  • Mary Kelly Doherty tied her career high with three goals on the day.
  • Choma now has tallied a hat trick in every game of the 2023 season. 
  • The three headed monster of Choma, Ahern and Wolak combined for 15 points.

UP NEXT

Notre Dame takes on Clemson for the first time in program history. The matchup will be hosted at Notre Dame on Saturday February 25. The matchup will have live stats and live stream available on ACCNX.