SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The No. 17 Notre Dame women’s soccer squad continues to thrive away from the Bend, moving to 2-0 in ACC road venues with a 3-0 victory at Syracuse. It was a dominant Saturday afternoon for the Fighting Irish (8-1-2, 2-0-2), in a game that could have witnessed up to 10 ND goals.
The Irish recorded a season-high 38 shots, four of which hit the crossbar. It took a tremendous day from Syracuse keeper Shea Vanderbosch to keep the floodgates from opening, recording 12 saves.
Notre Dame kept his undefeated record against Syracuse intact, improving to 18-0-1 all-time against the Orange.
Freshman Lily Joseph earned her first career brace, scoring both her goals within 90 seconds of each other in the first half. She now has five goals on the season, which is the second most on the squad.
Freshman Ellie Hodsden supplied Notre Dame’s third goal of the contest, coming in the 49th minute. It marked her fourth goal of the season.
Ellie Ospeck assisted the first goal, her second of the season. Both Leah Klenke and Grace Restovich earned the assist on Joseph’s second. That marked Klenke’s first points of the season. For Restovich, she earned her team-leading eighth assist, continuing her dominant freshman season leading the midfield.
Freshman Sonoma Kasica earned the start in net today and improved to 4-1-1. She recorded two saves.
HOW IT HAPPENED
It was a dominant first half for the Irish. Both Annabelle Chukwu and Charlie Codd hit the crossbar. Morgan Roy’s shot from deep almost went in, and later, Izzy Engle unfortunately missed a wide-open shot from the six-yard box.
Notre Dame finally broke through in the 29th minute thanks to fantastic one-on-one play on the left side of the box from Ospeck.
The graduate student beat her defender, took the ball to the baseline and found Joseph who tucked it away. Then 90 seconds later, the Irish were back in Syracuse’s box, and it was a bang-bang pass, Klenke to Restovich to Joseph, who then took a touch to her right and buried a goal to the upper-right 90.
The first half ended with the Irish up 2-0, owning a 7-1 shots-on-goal advantage.
Notre Dame picked up right where they left off, scoring just three minutes and 28 seconds into the second half. Charlie Codd hit her second crossbar of the day, but the ball bounced straight down and remained on the goal line where Ellie Hodsden followed through with the tap-in.
From there on out, it was just a flurry of near Notre Dame goals. Grace Restovich finished the game with a team-high eight shots, followed by six each from Annabelle Chukwu, Izzy Engle and Lily Joseph.
UP NEXT
It’s another long wait between games for the Irish for they’ll return to the pitch next Saturday, Oct. 12. Notre Dame will bus south to Louisville for a 5 p.m. kick off on ACCNX.
— ND –