Oct. 5, 2007
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Brittany Bock’s first career hat trick paced another efficient day from the Notre Dame offense, as the 20th-ranked Irish women’s soccer team remained unbeaten in BIG EAST play with Friday night’s 4-1 win at Syracuse. Notre Dame (6-4-1, 4-0-0 BIG EAST) extended its unbeaten streak versus BIG EAST teams to 28 games (27-0-1; dating back to mid-2005) – one of the longest conference unbeaten streaks in NCAA history – and has outscored the opposition 11-2 in its current three-game winning streak.
Bock, who again started at forward, became the 23rd different Notre Dame women’s soccer player ever to score three-plus goals in a game (done a total of 60 times). The junior standout is one of only six Irish players ever to score the first three goals in a game, with that short list also including current Irish players Kerri Hanks and Michele Weissenhofer.
Notre Dame finished Friday’s game with a 21-6 edge in total shots and 11-2 in shots on goal, with Syracuse averting the shutout on an 82nd-minute penalty kick that was called by the linesman. The Irish overcame the absence of two starters (both due to hamstring injuries), as sophomore center back Haley Ford was sidelined for the seventh straight game while senior forward/midfielder Amanda Cinalli was held out of action for the first time in her Notre Dame career.
The first goal came 32 seconds before halftime, with Bock finishing a deflected left-flank cross from Elise Weber for her third goal of the season and the 27th of her three-year career with the Irish. Senior midfielder Ashley Jones – who now has appeared in all 90 games of her career – made the most of her start in Cinalli’s spot. Jones provided the pass from the center of the field that led to Weber’s cross into the box, with Bock then sending a 10-yard shot into the upper left corner of the net (44:28).
Early in the second half, Jones picked up her 12th career assist with the lead pass that sprung Bock for a breakaway score (50:56). Bock ran onto the ball 25 yards out before racing free into the box and scoring on a shot into the right side.
Bock – who has eight gamewinning goals during the past two seasons (tied with Hanks for the team-high in GWGs during that 2006-07 span) – completed her hat trick less than two minutes later. Freshman forward Erica Iantorno sent a sliding pass from the left side and Bock beat the Syracuse defenders to the ball at the top of the 18-yard box before striking her shot past the charging’keeper Eliza Bennett-Hatton for the 3-0 lead (52:41).
Senior forward Susan Pinnick’s leftside cross assisted on the final goal, with Hanks then flicking the ball on before freshman Rose Augustin finished the sequence at the far-right post with her second goal in as many games(74:33).
Hanks (Sept. 21, vs. DePaul) and Bock are the first Notre Dame teammates to post hat tricks in the same regular season since Amy Warner (vs. Providence) and Meotis Erikson (vs. Georgetown) did so during the 2000 season. Weissenhofer (Nov. 24, 2006), Hanks and Bock each have turned in hat tricks over the span of Notre Dame’s past 14 games, stretching back to the late stages of the 2006 postseason.
Jones is the 26th all-time Notre Dame player to appear in 90-plus games (Cinalli is right behind, at 89) and remains on pace to make a run at the Irish record for career games played (103, by Jen Buczkowski from 2003-06). Bock’s 74 career points (29G-16A) rank 24th in the Notre Dame record book, one behind Stephanie Porterr and three back of Buczkowski. Bock’s 29 carer goals are 19th in Notre Dame history, two behind Porter and five back of Cinalli and Amy VanLaecke. Bock had only one goal in the first nine games of the season but has four in the past two games (after a seven-game goal drought).
Notre Dame’s current 29-game unbeaten streak versus BIG EAST teams ranks ninth in the NCAA record book and is third-longest in ND women’s soccer history. The Irish had a 37-game unbeaten streak against BIG EAST teams spanning the 1995-98 seasons (36-0-1) and also went 34 games versus BIG EAST foes without a loss (from 1998-2001; 33-0-1). The other top conference unbeaten streaks in NCAA D-I women’s soccer history belong to North Carolina (55 vs. Atlantic Coast Conference teams, from 1994-2000; 41, from 1987-94; 36, from 2002-05), Florida (50, Southeastern Conference, 1997-2001), Fairfield (38, Metro Atlantic, 1996-2000) and Portland (29; West Coast Conference, 1993-97).
Notre Dame’s 13 BIG EAST seasons now include a 110-8-4 record in BIG EAST regular-season games (.918), plus 27-2-0 in the BIG EAST Tournament.
HAT TRICK HISTORY – The first 54 hat tricks in ND history had featured only four times when an Irish player scored the first three goals of the game, but five of the past six ND hat tricks now have seen the same player score goals 1-2-3 (also Hanks three times – at Vermont in ’05, vs. Seton Hall in ’06 and vs. DePaul in ’07 – plus Weissenhofer vs. Penn State in the ’06 NCAA quartefinals) … Michelle McCarthy scored the first three goals of the game vs. Loyola Chicago in 1992, as did Rosella Guerrero vs. SMU in 1993 and Jenny Heft twice in her career (1997 vs. UCLA; 1998 vs. Wake Forest) … Hanks (at UVm) and Bock are the only ND players ever to score goals 1-2-3 in a road game … the 23 ND players who have combined on the 60 all-time hat tricks include: Heft (6), Hanks (5), Guerrero (5), Monica Gerardo (5), McCarthy (4), seven players with three each (Susie Zilvitis, Porter, Alison Lester, Cindy Daws, Anne Makinen, Jenny Streiffer and Erikson) and three with two HTs each (VanLaecke, Warner and Katie Thorlakson), plus single hat tricks from Shannon Sullivan, Margaret Jarc, Tasha Strawbridge, Stacia Masters, Shannon Boxx, Mary Boland, Weissenhofer and Bock.
Syracuse (4-5-3, 0-3-1 BIG EAST) 0 1 – 1
#20 Notre Dame (6-4-1, 4-0-0 BIG EAST) 1 3 – 4
ND 1. Brittany Bock 3rd of season/27th of career (-) 44:28; ND 2. Bock 4/28 (Ashley Jones) 50:56; ND 3. Bock 5/29 (Erica Iantorno) 52:41; ND 4. Rose Augustin 2 (Kerri Hanks, Susan Pinnick) 74:33; SYR 1. Karrah Benson 3 (PK) 81:28.
Shots: ND 21, SYR 6
Corner Kicks: ND 2, SYR 2
Saves: ND 1 (Lauren Karas 0 SV/0 GA in 65:45; Nikki Weiss 1 SV/1 GA in 24;15), SYR 7 (Eliza Bennett-Hatton)
Fouls: ND 16, SYR 16
Offside: ND 3, SYR 0