April 12, 2000
- Notre Dame falls to Connecticut, beats Boston College
- Tara Durkin among top goalkeepers according to NCAA national statistics
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team concludes its five game road trip this weekend when it travels to North Carolina to play at fourth-ranked Duke and against 14th-ranked Yale. The Irish are coming off a 13-10 win at Boston College on Sunday.
IRISH MEET BLUE DEVILS, BULLDOGS: Notre Dame makes its second trip to Duke for a 7:00 p.m. game against the fourth-ranked Blue Devils on Thurs., April 13. Duke enters the game with a 7-3 record and is coming off a 10-8 home loss to Virginia. Tricia Martin leads the Blue Devils with 28 goals, while Kelly Dirks has 22 goals. Duke is 11th in the country with 12.60 goal per game, while its defense is 18th at 8.10. The Blue Devils have won two previous meetings with the Irish, including a 14-5 win at Notre Dame.
On Sat., April 15, the Irish will meet 14th-ranked Yale at 1:00 p.m. at Duke. The Bulldogs enter the week with a 7-2 record and will play Columbia before traveling to North Carolina. Sophomore Amanda Walton leads Yale with 28 goals, while senior Heather Bentley has 19. Yale is 10th in the country in scoring with a 12.78 scoring average and 19th defensively at 8.11. The Bulldogs beat the Irish 14-10 last year at Notre Dame in the first meeting between the teams.
CONNECTICUT, BOSTON COLLEGE REVIEW: Notre Dame allowed a season-high 17 goals to fall to host Connecticut by a 17-7 score on Saturday. The Huskies held the Irish scoreless for 15:12 in the first half and the final 24 minutes of the game for the win. Junior captains Kathryn Perrella and Lael O’Shaughnessy led the Irish with three and two goals, respectively. Connecticut broke an early 1-1 tie with four consecutive goals to build a 5-1 lead it would never relinquish at 23:07. O’Shaughnessy and Perrella each scored in a 33-second span pull Notre Dame within 5-3, but the Huskies responded with five consecutive goals for a 10-3 lead at 7:03. The Irish closed out the half with goals at 5:22 by Perrella and 3:20 by freshmen Danielle Shearer to trail 10-5. The Irish were able to hold the Huskies scoreless until 14:09 of the second half but scored just two goals themselves in the time to trail 10-7. Perrella scored at 27:23 and sophomore Tina Fedarcyk scored Notre Dame’s final goal at 24:00. Connecticut scored seven goals in the final 14:09 of the game for the 17-7 final.
Seven different players scored as the Irish beat host Boston College 13-10 on Sunday to its end its six-game losing streak. Notre Dame’s defense held Boston College to just one goal in the final 21:55 of the game for the win. The Irish attack –averaging six goals in the last six games — exploded for four goals in the first six minutes to take an early 4-0 lead. Shearer scored twice and sophomore Alissa Moser and freshman Anne Riley also scored in the opening minutes. After Boston College scored four goals to tie the game, freshman Angela Dixon scored consecutive goals to give the Irish a 6-4 lead. O’Shaughnessy scored at 7:11 and junior Maura Doyle scored with 25 seconds left in the first half to give Notre Dame an 8-7 lead at halftime. The Irish used goals by Shearer and O’Shaughnessy to take a 12-9 lead with 13:49 left in the second half. The Notre Dame defense held Boston College scoreless the rest of the game. Doyle added another last-minute goal for the 13-10 final score. Junior goalkeeper Tara Durkin had 10 saves for the Irish
DURKIN AMONG NCAA LEADERS: Junior goalkeeper Tara Durkin — on pace for 200 saves this season — stands 15th among NCAA Division I goalkeepers with a .585 save percentage, according to the national statistics released on Wed., April 12. She already has 137 saves — an average of nearly 14 saves per game — and is on pace to set single-season Irish records for saves, save percentage and goals against average. Durkin matched the school record for single-game saves with 20 against Vanderbilt on April 2, becoming one of six NCAA Division I goalkeepers to record at least 20 saves in a game this season.
O’SHAUGHNESSY ON ATTACK: Junior captain Lael O’Shaughnessy — the third-highest returning scorer among NCAA Division I schools from the ’99 season — leads the team once again with 21 goals this season. She already has set the school record for career goals with 98 and needs just two more to reach the 100-goal milestone. O’Shaughnessy scored a school-record 50 goals last year and has scored at least one goal in 35 of the 37 games in which she has played in her career.
FEDARCYK, LAM LEAD DEFENSE: Sophomore defenders Tina Fedarcyk and Kathryn Lam have been active players for the Irish defensive unit. Fedarcyk leads the team with 41 groundballs and has caused 20 turnovers and controlled 23 draws. Lam has caused a team leading 26 turnovers and is second to Fedarcyk with 39 groundballs. She also has controlled 10 draws. Fedarcyk and Lam have committed just nine turnovers each, the fewest of all Notre Dame starters.
FROSH SPARKS IRISH: Notre Dame’s freshmen class already has had an impact on the program. Angela Dixon, Kelly McCardell, Anne Riley and Danielle Shearer have combined to start 30 games so far this season. The freshmen have scored 38 of the team’s 103 goals this season.
BIG EAST WOMEN’S LACROSSE: When Notre Dame plays Connecticut and Boston College next year, the games will be conference games. The 2001 women’s lacrosse season will mark a new era in the brief history of Notre Dame women’s lacrosse when the sport becomes the 20th sponsored by the BIG EAST Conference. Boston College, Connecticut, Georgetown, Rutgers, Syracuse and Virginia Tech will join Notre Dame in the formation of BIG EAST women’s lacrosse. Five of the six teams will be on Notre Dame’s schedule in 2000. The teams will play a round-robin schedule against each of the other six teams. The BIG EAST also has applied for an automatic bid into the NCAA Championship for the conference winner.
“We now will have opportunity to compete in a quality all-sports conference and develop conference rivalries,” says Tracy Coyne, a large part in the driving force among the coaching community for the inclusion of women’s lacrosse under the BIG EAST Conference umbrella. “I expect the BIG EAST to become a very influential conference on the national level, particularly with the success a number of the teams have had already and the support that the newer programs receive. We can be as powerful as any other lacrosse conference.”