Sept. 19, 2004
Notre Dame, Ind. – The fifth-ranked University of Notre Dame men’s soccer team used a three-goal performance in the second half to defeat Georgetown 4-1 in the BIG EAST Conference opener for both squads on Saturday, Sept. 18 at Alumni Field. Freshman midfielder Alex Yoshinaga netted the first two goals of his Notre Dame career in his first collegiate start to pace the Irish along with sophomore midfielder Ian Etherington, who assisted on two scores.
Georgetown (3-4-0) found the net first as Danny McAnally drove a cross into the lower left corner from six-yards out on a feed from Ricky Schramm and Trevor Goodrich in the 34th minute. The Irish, who out-shot the Hoyas 22-5 in the contest, responded just over a minute later when Yoshinaga took a pass from midfielder Greg Dalby and chipped the ball over the goalkeeper’s head from 25-yards out to knot the score at one in the 35th minute.
Notre Dame (4-1-1) was held scoreless over the next 37 minutes, but then notched three goals in just over seven minutes of play to put the game away. In the 72nd minute, forward Joe Lapira took a nice pass from Brian Murphy and beat the goalkeeper one-on-one when he booted the ball from the 15-yard mark to record his first-career goal at Notre Dame. Yoshinaga was heard from again at the 75:53 mark when he netted his second goal of the contest with the assists going to Etherington and Luke Boughen. Junior forward Tony Megna put the capper on the game three minutes later when he took a thru-ball from Etherington and beat the goalkeeper from 10-yards out to make it 4-1.
Irish head coach Bobby Clark was pleased with his team’s performance after the intermission. “The second half speaks for itself,” stated Clark. “We outshot them 15-3 in that half and it was a good all-around performance. We were a little nervous in the first half, especially after they scored, but getting the goal back so quickly was important for us. It was also good to see some of the freshman in there doing well.”
The Irish will now hit the road for two key BIG EAST contests. Notre Dame will battle West Virginia on Thursday, Sept. 23 and then travel to Villanova for a contest on Sunday, Sept. 26. The team will return to Alumni Field for a contest against Boston College on Oct. 1.
— ND –