Nov. 12, 2006
Final Stats (HTML; includes play-by-play)
Boxscore in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Michele Weissenhofer scored in the game’s fifth minute and top-ranked Notre Dame held on from there versus Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as the Irish overcame yet another challenging NCAA second-round game, 1-0, in Sunday-afternoon action at Alumni Field. Notre Dame (22-0-1) – which set a team record with its 30th consecutive win at home (sixth-best in NCAA D-I women’s soccer history) – now has advanced to the NCAA Tournament round-of-16 in 12 of the past 14 seasons, the second-most appearances in the final-16 during that 14-year span. The Irish next will face the University of Colorado in the third round, with that game scheduled to be played at Alumni Field on Friday, Nov. 17 (7:30 p.m. EST).
Notre Dame owns the second-best winning percentage in NCAA Tournament history (.754; 37-11-1/30-3-0 at home) but the Irish have experienced several challenges in the second round, most notably in the six years since the current 64-team format was adopted (with two games on the opening weekend for all teams). Notre Dame lost to Cincinnati in the 2001 second round and to Michigan in the second round of ’03, with wins in 2002 (3-1 vs. Purdue), 2004 (1-0 vs. Wisconsin) and 2005 (3-0 vs. Michigan State). Sunday’s game had several similarities to the 2004 second-round matchup, when the Irish edged another team from the state of Wisconsin (beating the Badgers on a goal in the 90th minute) en route to concluding that dominant season with a national title.
Hermann Trophy candidate Jen Buczkowski picked up her fifth assist of the postseason in the win over UWM and has played in all 99 games of her Notre Dame career.
|
 |
The Irish continued to play with two freshmen (Haley Ford and Amanda Clark) starting on the back line, as sophomore center back Carrie Dew remains out due to her ACL knee injury while senior left back Christie Shaner missed her second straight game due to illness.
Weissenhofer’s 15 goals this season include four gamewinners, with three of those timely scores coming in the postseason. The freshman sensation also had the flip-throw that assisted on another gamewinner earlier in the 2006 postseason.
Sunday’s goal was Notre Dame’s third-quickest of the season (4:37), trailing only the goal scored in the BIG EAST title game versus Rutgers (0:57; quickest ever in an ND postseason game) and the first goal of the season in the game with Iowa State (1:17; quickest ever in an ND opener). Sophomore forward Kerri Hanks scored both of those earlier quick goals and had the primary assist on the early strike that ended up being the only scoring in the win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee (16-4-2).
Senior midfielder Jen Buczkowski – who now has appeared in all 99 games of her career with the Irish (the third-longest games-played streak in ND history) – set up the goal with a driven ball down the center of the field. Hanks received the pass and appeared ready to try the shot from the top of the box before alertly sending a short thru-ball into the left side. Weissenhofer was angling in from the left and used some quick thinking to strike the ball with her off-foot, resulting in a shot from the outside of her right foot. Goalkeeper Erin Kane was caught wrong-footed, as the shot from eight yards out carried into the right side of the net for the 15th goal of Weissenhofer’s freshman season.
Notre Dame finished with a narrow shot edge (9-7) that produced the rarity of both teams having single-digit shot totals – with the senior class still yet to be outshot in a game during their career (from 2003-06). The game featured just five shots on goal (three for the Irish) and each team attempted five corner kicks, with the Irish totaling more than double UWM’s number of fouls (17-8). Notre Dame was whistled offside six times in the game (none for the visitors).
UPDATED TEAM NOTES – ND has advanced to the NCAA round-of-16 every season since 1994, with the exception of 2001 and ’03 (12) … UNC has been in the final-16 every year since ’94 (Portland has made the round-of-16 in 12 of the past 14 seasons – as has UConn, pending its game on Monday vs. Texas) … UConn (0-0) and Georgetown (0-1) are the only other teams to hold the Irish without multiple goals this season … the shutout is ND’s 17th of the season, one shy of tying the team record … the Irish are 24-0-0 in Sunday games during the past two seasons … ND’s 30-game home winning streak bests the team record (29) set from 1999-2001 … the home unbeaten streak now stands at 39 games (38-0-1), still fourth-best in NCAA history (one shy of UNC’s 40-game home unbeaten streak from 1981-84) … three of the five longest home winning streaks belong to UNC (84 from ’86-’94, 40 from ’81-’84 and 31 from ’99-’02), plus 39 straight home wins by Penn State (from 2001-04) and 32 by Santa Clara (1997-2000) … ND has won 32 straight when scoring first … the Irish have posted 12 straight postseason wins at Alumni Field … ND now owns a 75-8 season scoring margin … ND is 69-5-3 when playing as the #1-ranked team in the NSCAA poll … the Irish own a 42-3 scoring edge at home this season (Hanks has 11G-8A in the 11 home games) … a win over CU would match the best undefeated starts in ND history (the 1994, ’97 and 2000 teams all opened 23-0-1) … ND has held 19 straight opponents to 0-4 shots on goals and has yielded 0-2 shots on goal in 17 of the 23 games this season (3 with 3 SOG, 2 with 4 SOG, 1 with 10 SOG).
Kerri Hanks added to her extensive Hermann Trophy credentials with the primary assist on Sunday’s goal vs. UWM, giving her a nine-game point streak and points in 11 of 12 postseason games during her career.
|
|
UPDATED PLAYER NOTES – Hanks has points in 11 of her 12 career postseason games and currently is riding a nine-game point streak this season (tying her career-best) … she has factored into two-thirds of the team’s goals (30 of 45; 15G-15A) since the midpoint of the regular season, with points in 13 of those 14 games … Hanks has scored (12) or assisted (10) on half of ND’s gamewinning goals (22 of 44) during the past two seasons … she now needs 4A to become the 11th D-I player ever to reach 20G-20A in a season … Hanks has tied Monica Gerardo’s record for points in a season by an ND sophomore (58) … she needs two more points to join Katie Thorlakson as the only ND players with multiple 60-point seasons in their careers (71 in ’05) … Hanks has scored (6) or assisted (7) on 13 of ND’s 22 gamewinning goals this season (her 19 gamewinning points are 3rd-best in ND history, four shy of Thorlakson’s record) … Hanks now owns 36 career postseason points (14G-8A; 3.0 ppg) … Hanks (58) and Weissenhofer (47; 15G-17A) are close to becoming the fourth set of ND teammates (and 23rd in NCAA history) to each go over 50 points in the same season …Weissenhofer (17) and Hanks (16) could be 1-2 when the NCAA assist leaders list is updated tomorrow … Weissenhofer has scored (4) or assisted (6) on 10 of the Irish GWGs this season … Buczkowski’s career-best 12 assists all have come in the past 14 games … Weissenhofer has points in 19 of the 23 games this season … the only ND freshmen who have totaled more goals than Weissenhofer (15) are: Hanks (28), Anne Makinen (23), Meotis Erikson (22), Jenny Streiffer (22), Gerardo (20) and Cindy Daws (16) … the senior class now owns an 89-7-3 career record (.914) … Buczkowski is sixth on the ND career games played list (99) and 10th in starts (91) … center back Kim Lorenzen and defensive midfielder Jill Krivakcek each logged their 91st career game with the Irish … the only ND players to appear in more games that Buczkowski are Shannon Boxx (101 straight), Erikson (101 straight), Holly Manthei (100), Streiffer (100) and Jen Grubb (100) … the eight seniors have combined for 567 career games played (350 starts) … the Irish are 38-1-1 during the past two seasons with Lorenzen in the starting lineup … Buczkowski, Krivacek and Lorenzen have appeared in all 25 postseason games during the past four seasons.
UWM HEAD COACH MICHAEL MOYNIHAN – “We had a tremendous physical effort. From watching the other night, when you sit back in a 4-5-1 and try to defend, you are digging yourself a hole. Notre Dame has a lot of exceptional individuals and it’s easy to get into that mentality that, `Hey, we just need to hold off and hope to counter.’ But I think they wear teams out, with the number of goals they score in the second half. They can possess the ball and tire you out. Our mentality was to go at them and see – nobody else does. Let’s see if we can attack them. They knew they were in a battle. …The early goal against us, it’s hard to fight back from that. We talked about playing safe from the start and let the game settle down a bit. After the goal, we worked ourself into a rhythm. … We have two seniors who are the center backs. To play the number-one team in the country and play with confidence speaks very well for them. … Early on, we were a little bit frantic. But once we realized we had more time, we won more of the battles. We were able to maintain possession and were in their half of the field a lot. … We were very disappointed with our set pieces, normally we are very good on those.”
NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH Randy Waldrum – “I thought we got outplayed today. The disappointing thing was the intensity of the team, it was not good. We slowly let them in the game and they got some momentum. They created a lot of dangerous opportunities by dumping the ball in the box. They are very similar to Marquette, a disruptive team that is tough to play against. … I give a lot of credit to Milwaukee because they had their team prepared to play. Part of our problem was what they did and the great job they did all year. I knew they were a good team. But now, it’s past us and we have to move on. We have been on the flip-side of this and lost when we played well. We were fortunate enough to win and now have to get ready for the next game. … They had a four-player midfield but that’s something we have to deal with all the time. We weren’t getting our wing [forwards] and outside backs to help out in the midfield enough and the midfielders ended up just chasing the game. We were so worried about getting beat with long services to the back. It’s something that should not happen because we see that every weekend. … The problem today for the backs was not so much that we had two freshmen back there but it was the way they all played. They were facing a style of constantly bombarding you with long services. The field conditions aren’t the best and you can take a slip of make a bad angle. The freshmen are holding their own – it wasn’t the back line so much that bothered me today. … On the goal, Hanks was winding up like she was going to shoot and showed great vision to make that pass. You look back at it as a coach and think that maybe we scored too fast and then shut it down. Sometimes players relax after an early goal but that’s not like us to react that way,.”
NOTRE DAME SENIOR DEFENDER Kim Lorenzen – “They were pretty high-pressure and did a really good job defending us and made it hard for us to get into our rhythm. That’s probably due a lot to their athleticism. They were very organized and played a good game. … As with any change, it’s a little bit of an adjustment. But [Ford and Clark] both have played in enough games that they no longer are freshmen and we expect a lot from them. … A game like this is good training for tournament time because you realize no matter how good of a season you have had, it all doesn’t matter at all right now. It’s just this one game. I’m proud for us pulling it through at the end because this was a good opponent. … It’s hard because you are putting all that you have into your Friday-night game and then the turnaround is so quick to recover. Hopefully, from now on we can be fresher in our games. A lot of our legs were tired and – with how wet it was on Friday night – it’s hard on your legs and it’s like walking in sand. We will look forward to next weekend and a fresh start.”
NOTRE DAME JUNIOR GOALKEEPER Lauren Karas – “I didn’t have to make too many saves, just a lot of pickups and helping control the action. … [With the freshmen in the back], it takes me being more vocal with the defense and making sure things are organized. Our freshmen aren’t really freshmen anymore. … This is what you train for, I wasn’t nervous.”
Wisconsin-Milwaukee (16-4-2) 0 0 – 0
Notre Dame (22-0-1) 1 0 – 1
ND 1. Michele Weissenhofer 15 (Kerri Hanks, Jen Buczkowski) 4:37.
Shots: UWM 3-4 – 7, ND 5-4 – 9
Corner Kicks: UWM 4-1 – 5, ND 3-2 – 5
Saves: UWM 2 (Erin Kane), ND 2 (Lauren Karas)
Fouls: UWM 8, ND 17
Offside: UWM 0, ND 6
Yellow Cards: Brittany Bock (ND) 52:25; Kim Lorenzen (ND) 69:43; Claire Pignet (UWM) 74:55