Aug. 18, 2007

ND-UNC Full-Color Women’s Soccer Game Program in PDF Format
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Fans attending Sunday’s Notre Dame-North Carolina women’s soccer game – and those not able to attend – can get a jump start on familiarizing themselves with the teams by viewing the full-color PDF of the game program (linked above) … some of the content from the program also is included below (best viewed via the PDF).

NCAA WOMEN’S SOCCER – #2 Notre Dame vs. #1 North Carolina … Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007 … Alumni Field (Notre Dame, Ind.)

ELITE MATCHUP – Today’s exhibition is a rare quick rematch of the 2006 NCAA title game (won 2-1 by UNC) and brings together the nation’s winningest programs of the current decade (UNC went 163-9-7/.930 from 2000-06 while ND was 146-20-4/.871) … there have been only nine previous times that saw the teams from an NCAA title game meet in the following regular season (two of them ND-UNC rematches) … teams that had won the title in those instances have gone a combined 6-2-1 in the ensuing rematch (including ND’s 2-2 tie with UNC in 1997), with most of those rematches typically coming well into the second half of the season … UNC and ND rank 1-2 atop many lists in the 25-year history of Division I women’s soccer:
• Most career wins among current senior classes (ND 72-5-2/.924, ’04-’06; UNC 70-3-3/.941)
• Winningest teams of the 1990s (UNC 216-7-3/.962; ND 196-27-11/.861)
• NCAA title-game appearances (UNC 21, ND 6)
• Hermann Trophy player-of-the-year recipients (UNC 8, ND 3)
• NSCAA All-Americans since 1994 (UNC 41, ND 37)
• CoSIDA Academic All-Americans since 1995 (ND 18, UNC 12)

2007 ND SCHEDULE – see PDF

Team Rosters – see PDF

GAME NOTES – Notre Dame returns the bulk of its offense, with the returning players having accounted for 89% of the team’s goals in 2006 (UNC’s healthy returning players scored just 57% of the Tar Heels’ goals last season) … the Irish must replace four graduated starters – All-America midfelder Jen Buczkowski, defensive midfield standout Jill Krivacek, all-BIG EAST left back Christie Shaner and one of the two starting center backs (’06 team captain Kim Lorenzen) … veteran candidates to step into starting roles include sophomore center back Haley Ford (who started for injured Carrie Dew in the ’06 postseason), versatile sophomore D/M Amanda Clark, sophomore midfielder Courtney Rosen, junior midfielder Becca Mendoza and junior outside back Elise Weber (a transfer from Wisconsin) … junior Kerry Inglis also could emerge among the top options at outside back, after being slowed by an ankle injury the past two seasons … UNC lost a pair of starting forwards to graduation (Heather O’Reilly and Libby Guess), with defensive midfielder Ali Hawkins also out for the year due to an ACL knee injury (Allie Long, a transfer from Penn State, plays the same position) … UNC center back Jessica Maxwell is back for her fifth year, after missing the `03 season due to injury … Maxwell also did not play in the 2006 NCAA title game (her replacement in that game, Robin Gayle, currently is preparing to play with Canada at the World Cup) … the 2006 championship game marked the first time in the 25-year history of D-I women’s soccer that both teams entered the title game with 25 or more victories (51-1-1 combined record) … ND (1995, 2004) joins UNC and Portland as the only teams to win multiple NCAA titles (UNC is the only one with more than two) … the Irish led the nation last season in scoring margin (+74; 85-11) and shutouts (19, ND record) while UNC had an 81-13 scoring margin (+68) … ND’s Kerri Hanks (22G-22A) in 2006 joined former UNC great Mia Hamm as the only players to end a season as the national leader in both goals and assists … Hanks became the youngest player by class year (female or male) ever to receive the Hermann Trophy, as a sophomore … her 137 career points are the third-most ever compiled by a D-I women’s soccer player as a freshman and sophomore … Hanks (66) and Michele Weissenhofer (53) had a rare 1-2 teammate finish atop the national scoring charts in 2006 … ND and UNC’s rosters include numerous players who have played for various youth national teams, in addition to stints with the full U.S. National Team (playing and/or training – those players include UNC’s Yael Averbuch, Tobin Heath and Casey Nogueira, and ND’s Kerri Hanks and Brittany Bock) … Amanda Cinalli, a three-time all-BIG EAST performer, will serve as the ND team captain this season … Notre Dame owns an active 32-game home winning streak (in official fall games) and also is unbeaten in 41 straight at Alumni Field (40-0-1), with both marks ranking third in the NCAA record book (UNC won 84 straight home games from 1986-94 and Penn State had a 32-game home win streak from 2001-04) … ND’s Randy Waldrum (.773/273-74-18) is tied with Florida’s Becky Burleigh for the 4th-best career coaching win pct. among coaches with a minimum of 10 years on the Division I level, behind UNC’s Anson Dorrance (.945), former Portland coach Clive Charles (.799) and Santa Clara’s Jerry Smith (.777) … in the span of 15 days this season, Waldrum will match wits with Dorrance, Burleigh and Smith … Dorrance and UConn’s Len Tsantiris (4) are the only Division I coaches that have taken more teams to the NCAA title game than Waldrum (3; 1999, 2004 and `06) … ND ranked 4th in average home attendance during the 2006 season (1,901), behind Texas A&M, Portland and BYU … after UNC and ND, Penn State (which will play at ND on Sept. 23) has the nation’s third-best win pct. this decade (.840/141-22-12).

SERIES NOTES – UNC’s all-time record (629-28-18) includes only eight opponents who have totaled at least two games vs. the Tar Heels that were not losses (wins or ties) … ND owns the best win pct. vs. UNC from that group (.231: 2-9-2), followed by Santa Clara’s .222 (4-14) … the higher-ranked team is only 6-4-2 in the ND-UNC series (teams were co-#1 entering the ’06 title game) … four ND-UNC games on the NCAA final weekend have stopped teams from rare unbeaten seasons (ND in ’94, UNC in `95, ND in 2000 and ND in ’06) … from 1994-2003, there was only one unbeaten NCAA champion (UNC in ’97) … the 1999 NCAA final is the only time in the history of the ND-UNC series that one of the teams was not ranked #1 … the 1994 tie with ND (0-0, in St. Louis) snapped UNC’s 92-game winning streak (longest in D-I history for any team-based sport) … ND’s 1-0 win at UNC in the 1995 NCAA semifinals ended UNC’s run of national titles (9) and kept the Tar Heels out of the title game for the first time since the tournament began in 1982 … Jenny Streiffer’s pair of goals in the 1996 regular-season game (2-1/OT, at Duke) made ND the first team ever to defeat UNC in consecutive meetings (matched only by SCU) … ND has been shut out only 14 times since ’94 (five in games vs. UNC/three in title games) … the 1997 ND-UNC tie (2-2) came on an “electric” night at Alumni Field, with an overflow crowd of 3,000-plus buzzing as ND’s Jenny Heft tied the game in the 69th minute (the game was halted in the 72nd minute – and ultimately ended – due to lightning) … the first game of the Randy Waldrum era at ND saw Mia Sarkesian give the Irish a 2-1 lead shortly before halftime, but Kim Patrick tied the game with 2:56 left in regulation and Meredith Florance scored the gamewinner with just 1:00 left in the second OT (nearly the third tie in the series) … since that game, ND has not lost in overtime (14-0-6) … the 1999 game vs. UNC is ND’s only loss in a season opener since 1992 … the teams played a preseason exhibition in 2002, won 4-2 by UNC in nearby Fort Wayne, Ind. … ND’s Kerri Hanks was a club teammate of UNC’s Jessica Maxwell (Dallas Texans) and played on the U.S. Under-19 National Team with UNC goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris … ND’s Brittany Bock has youth national team ties to 10 UNC players: on the U-20s with Tobin Heath, Casey Nogueira and Allie Long, on the U-17s and U-19s with Ashlyn Harris, Yale Averbuch and Jaime Gilbert, on the U-16s with Mandy Moraca and Nikki Washington, and at U-20 training camps with Ariel Harris and Whitney Engen … ND’s Carrie Dew also has U-20 and U-16 ties to those players, in addition to playing on Cal-South state ODP with Engen … ND’s Haley Ford captained the Dallas Texans club to the 2006 USYS U-18 national title (UNC’s Washington and Kristi Evelend were members of that team) … ND’s Courtney Rosen has past playing experience with Heath (U-17s) … ND newcomer Lauren Fowlkes was a U-17 teammate of Heath, Washington and Rachel Givan.

Preseason NSCAA Poll – see PDF

Notre Dame headshots sheet – see PDF