May 10, 2015
EVANSTON, Ill. – Game Notes 
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A trip to the NCAA quarterfinals is on the line as Notre Dame and Northwestern, the top two women’s lacrosse teams in the Midwest for much of the past decade, square off at 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday at the Wildcats’ Lakeside Field in Evanston, Illinois.
The two teams played a tight 10-9 contest on April 16 at Arlotta Stadium which was tied six times before a late goal finally lifted the Wildcats to a road win. The winner of Sunday’s matchup between these highly-familiar foes will face the winner of today’s second round game between No. 1-seed Maryland and Massachusetts next weekend. It would be Notre Dame’s first quarterfinal appearance since 2009.
HISTORY VS. NORTHWESTERN
– Notre Dame and Northwestern meet for the 19th time today with the Wildcats holding a 15-3 lead in the series. Northwestern has won all four meetings in the NCAA tournament.
– The Irish claimed each of the first two meetings, coming in 2002 and 2003, but the Wildcats ran of a string of 14 straight victories after that.
– Notre Dame claimed a 9-8 victory on March 5, 2014, at the Lake Barrington Fieldhouse to snap that string but the Wildcats took a 10-9 win back to Evanston on April 16 of this year.
– The meeting earlier this year was a close but surprisingly sloppy affair with both teams committing at least 20 turnovers. The score was tied six times before Sheila Nesselbush tallied the game-winner with 3:44 to play.
IRISH RALLY AND ADVANCE PAST OHIO STATE
– Notre Dame fell behind 7-4 late in the first half but tallied seven unanswered goals to take charge of the game and defeat Ohio State, 13-11, in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday night. It marked the first time this year that the Irish had won a game when trailing at halftime. Ohio State held a 7-5 advantage at the break.
– Notre Dame had four players record at least three points. Cortney Fortunato and Heidi Annaheim each had two goals and two assists. Stephanie Toy had a hat trick while freshman Molly Cobb assisted on three goals. Cobb entered the game with just two assists on the season.
– Critical to the success of the Irish was an 18-8 edge in draw controls. Barbara Sullivan controlled eight draws – one shy of her school single game record. Cortney Fortunato matched her career high with four.
IRISH BEAT THE BEST
– Notre Dame has claimed a school-record three wins this year against top 10 teams.
– Remarkably, all three of the wins have come on the road and since April 4.
– The Irish defeated No. 4 Virginia, 14-4, on April 4 in Charlottesville and then flew north to down No. 7 Syracuse, 12-11 in overtime, on April 7 at the Carrier Dome. The Irish returned to Charlottesville and beat No. 5 Virginia, 7-6, in the ACC quarterfinals on April 23.
– Prior to 2015, only once had Notre Dame claimed two top-seven road wins in the same season, let alone in consecutive contests. The 2008 team captured victories at No. 7 Duke (12-8 on April 2) and No. 7 Georgetown (10-8 on April 12).
– Notre Dame had claimed two top ten wins, regardless of venue, in a season four times before 2015, most recently in 2014 with wins over No. 4 Northwestern and No. 7 Duke.
– The first win over Virginia marked the highest-ranked win in school history on an opponent’s true home field. The Irish also won at No. 4 Northwestern, 9-8, on March 5, 2014, but that game was played off campus at the Lake Barrington Fieldhouse in Lake Barrington, Illinois due to frigid weather.
NCAA TOURNAMENT HISTORY
– Notre Dame is competing in the NCAA Tournament for the school-record fourth consecutive year and the seventh time in the last eight years.
– The Irish are making their 10th NCAA Tournament appearance overall and stand at 6-9 all-time in the event.
– The Irish are playing at Northwestern for the sixth time in their 10 NCAA appearances. The Irish previously played in Evanston in 2004, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013.
– Notre Dame is 6-1 all-time in NCAA Tournament home games. The Irish are 0-6 on the road and 1-2 at neutral sites.
– Notre Dame’s best finish was in 2006 when it advanced to the final four, held at Boston University’s Nickerson Field.
2002: QUARTERFINALS
May 9: Notre Dame 11, Ohio State 7
May 12: Princeton 11, Notre Dame 5
2004: FIRST ROUND
May 13: Northwestern 10, Notre Dame 8
2006: SEMIFINALS
May 14: Notre Dame 16, Cornell 8
May 20: Notre Dame 12, Georgetown 9
May 26: Dartmouth 14, Notre Dame 8 (at Boston)
2008: FIRST ROUND
May 11: Northwestern 15, Notre Dame 7
2009: QUARTERFINALS
May 10: Notre Dame 19, Vanderbilt 13
May 16: North Carolina 16, Notre Dame 10
2010: FIRST ROUND
May 15: Northwestern 19, Notre Dame 7
2012: FIRST ROUND
May 12: Northwestern 12, Notre Dame 7
2013: FIRST ROUND
May 10: Stanford 8, Notre Dame 7 (at Evanston, Ill.)
2014: SECOND ROUND
May 9: Notre Dame 18, High Point 4
May 11: Duke 10, Notre Dame 8
2015
May 8: Notre Dame 13, Ohio State 11 (at Evanston, Ill.)
Home team in italics
CONSISTENT CAUSED TURNOVER LEADERS
– Preaching a “fast, aggressive and passionate” defensive scheme, Notre Dame has regularly been among the best in the country in caused turnovers under head coach Christine Halfpenny and 2015 is no exception.
– The Irish lead the ACC and rank third nationally by causing 11.22 turnovers per game entering this week.
– Notre Dame is vying to finish in the top 10 nationally in caused turnovers for the fourth consecutive season under Halfpenny and lead its league for the third year in a row.
– The 2014 Irish topped the ACC and ranked sixth nationally with 10.53 caused turnovers per game.
– The 2013 Irish led the BIG EAST and ranked third nationally with 11.12 caused turnovers per game.
– The 2012 Irish were ninth in the country with 9.39 caused turnovers per game and third in the BIG EAST.
– Individually, Notre Dame has each of the top four in the league in caused turnovers, Barbara Sullivan (34), Cortney Fortunato (29), Stephanie Peragallo (25) and Casey Pearsall (22).
– Of the 31 players who have appeared in a game for the Irish this year, 22 have caused at least one turnover.
GROUND BALL COUNT HARDLY GROUNDED
– An off-shoot of the aggressive blue-collar defensive tactics that have helped Notre Dame rank highly in caused turnovers, Notre Dame is also strong on ground balls.
– The Irish entered the NCAA tournament second in the ACC, scooping up 17.17 ground balls per game.
– Notre Dame led the ACC in ground balls last year at 21.42 per game, ranking third nationally.
– The Irish led the BIG EAST in ground balls in 2013 at 19.12 per game, ranking fifth nationally.
NOTRE DAME IN THE POLLS
– Notre Dame is presently ranked No. 12 in the IWLCA Coaches poll and stands at No. 17 in the Inside Lacrosse media poll. Lacrosse Magazine did not update its poll this week.
– The Irish have been ranked anywhere from No. 10 to No. 19 by the coaches in 2015.
– Notre Dame has risen to No. 8 and fallen to No. 18 in the Inside Lacrosse poll.
– The Irish are 4-8 against ranked opposition.
– The NCAA second round game against Northwestern will mark the eighth time Notre Dame has played a ranked team in the last nine games. Seven of these nine ranked opponents were ranked in the top 10 (North Carolina – twice, Virginia – twice, Northwestern – twice and Syracuse).
– Under head coach Christine Halfpenny, Notre Dame has never lost to an unranked team.
CONSISTENT STARTERS
– Notre Dame’s starting lineup has not fluctuated much in 2015. Nine players have started all 19 games (Alex Dalton, Cortney Fortunato, Leah Gallagher, Caitlin Gargan, Liz O’Sullivan, Stephanie Peragallo, Rachel Sexton, Barbara Sullivan and Stephanie Toy).
– That sum had been 10 through the first 15 games until Casey Pearsall was injured.
EXPERIENCE STARTING TO PAY OFF
– Notre Dame put a young team on the field in 2014 as nine of the team’s 12 most frequent starters were either freshmen or sophomores.
– Players who returned in 2015 accounted for 295 of the team’s 334 points (88-percent) in 2014.
– This trend will continue into 2016 as the Irish have a small, five-member, senior class this year. Notre Dame is expected to welcome back players who have accounted for 298 of its 319 points (93-percent) this year. Caitlin Gargan has 19 of those points.
GOOD POSITION ON FREE POSITIONS
– The Irish have taken full advantage of its free position attempts in 2015, scoring on 48.1 percent of them (51 of 106).
– The 51 free position goals are the most at Notre Dame since the 2009 team scored 54.
– Not surprisingly, Cortney Fortunato tops the team in free position goals with 16, coming on 26 shots for a 62 percent success rate.
– Rachel Sexton is second on the squad with seven free position goals, coming on 12 attempts for a 58 percent success rate. Stephanie Toy (six for 12) is third in free position goals on the Irish.
SINGLE DIGIT DEFENSE
– In 10 of Notre Dame’s 19 games this year, its opposition was held to nine goals or less.
– The 10 single-digit defensive efforts are the most since 2004 when 12 Notre Dame foes were held to single digit scoring.
– The school record is 13, set in 2002.
– Not surprisingly, Notre Dame won eight of the 10 games when holding its opposition to single digit goals. The Irish have won 34 of their last 37 such games, including a 9-0 mark last year. One of those exceptions though is the 9-8 loss to North Carolina on March 29.
– The Irish held an NCAA-seeded team to single digits four times this year, holding No. 2 North Carolina to nine (March 29), No. 6 Stony Brook to nine (March 10) and No. 7 Virginia to both four (April 4) and six (April 23).
DEPTH ON OFFENSE
– Eight Notre Dame players have at least 20 points on the season, matching the school record established in 2006 and equaled in both 2009 and 2011.
– Caitlin Gargan has 19 points on the year (13 goals and six assists), needing just one more point to allow Notre Dame to break this record.
– The Irish have seen Cortney Fortunato (75), Rachel Sexton (40), Heidi Annaheim (33), Casey Pearsall (33), Stephanie Toy (25), Grace Muller (23), Kiera McMullan (20) and Brie Custis (20) all score at least 20 points already this year.
EIGHT PLAYERS RECORD HAT TRICKS
– Eight Notre Dame players have recorded a hat trick this season, reflecting the team’s diverse attack that has aided it, particularly when teams have over-committed to guarding Cortney Fortunato.
– Fortunato leads the squad with 10 hat tricks on the year through 19 games. In her All-American freshman season, Fortunato had just nine in 19 games.
– Rachel Sexton has five hat tricks on the season and the Irish have gone 4-1 in those games, losing only on Feb. 20 at Stanford.
– Heidi Annaheim (three), Stephanie Toy (three) and also Grace Muller (two) have multiple hat tricks on the season. The Irish have yet to lose when one of them records a hat trick.
– Caitlin Gargan, Kiera McMullan and Casey Pearsall round out the Irish hat trick roll for 2015 with one each.
IRISH TEAM CAPTAINS
– Three team captains were named prior to the start of the 2015 season, Leah Gallagher, Shauna Pugliese and Margaret Smith and Barbara Sullivan.
– Sullivan also served as a captain in 2014. It marks the second year in a row where the Irish have had a two-year captain. Margaret Smith served in that role in both 2013 and 2014.
SULLIVAN NAMED TEWAARATON FINALIST
– On May 7, Barbara Sullivan was named as one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award. She was the only defensive player among the five finalists on either the men’s or women’s sides of the ballot.
– Sullivan is the third Notre Dame finalist, joining Crysti Foote in 2006 and Jillian Byers in 2009. Oddly, all three were in Evanston, Illinois this weekend. Byers is now an assistant coach for Ohio State while Foote is an assistant coach at Louisville.
– Matt Kavanagh of the Irish men’s team was also named a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award, making Notre Dame and Syracuse the lone schools with a finalist of each gender in 2015.
– It is the first time that the Irish have had both a men’s and women’s finalist in the same season.
– Notre Dame has never won a Tewaaraton Award.
– Sullivan leads the ACC in caused turnovers (1.83 per game) while also ranking fourth in ground balls (2.22 per game) and fifth in draw controls (3.94 per game). Sullivan has set Irish school records this year for both single season (81) and career (202) draw controls while matching her single game school record of nine in Notre Dame’s 14-4 win at No. 4 Virginia on April 4. She is currently fifth in career ground balls and sixth in career caused turnovers.
TWO NAMED ALL-ACC
– Barbara Sullivan (first team) and Cortney Fortunato (second team) were named All-ACC on April 22 in a vote of the league’s coaches.
– In 2014, Margaret Smith was the lone Irish player to be named All-ACC making the league’s second team. Smith went on to be named a first-team All-American and was named the co-national Defender of the Year by Inside Lacrosse.
– This is Sullivan’s third all-conference honor. She was named first-team All-BIG EAST in 2013 and second-team All-BIG EAST in 2012.
– It is Fortunato’s first all-conference recognition as the third-team All-American and was omitted from the 2014 All-ACC teams.
SULLIVAN MAKES ACC ALL-TOURNEY TEAM
– Barbara Sullivan earned a spot on the ACC all-tournament team as she helped the Irish defeat Virginia to advance to the semifinals before falling to North Carolina.
– Sullivan had six ground balls, nine draw controls and five caused turnovers during the two games in Charlottesville, Virginia.
– It marks the second year in a row that the Irish have had an ACC all-tournament selection. Caitlin Gargan made the squad in 2014 for her three-goal, three-assist game in a quarterfinal loss to No. 1 Syracuse.
FORTUNATO AND SULLIVAN NAMED TO TEWAARATON NOMINEE LIST
– Both Cortney Fortunato and Barbara Sullivan were named to the nominee list for the Tewaaraton Trophy on April 23.
– It is the third time that Notre Dame has had multiple nominees, a feat last seen in 2009 (Shaylyn Blaney and Jillian Byers).
– Sullivan joins Byers (2008, 2009) as the schools’ only two-time nominees.
– The Irish have had a Tewaaraton nominee in each of the past four years with Maggie Tamasitis (2012), Sullivan (2013) and Margaret Smith (2014) all advancing this stage of the competition where they are chosen as one of the top 25 players in the country.
SULLIVAN ACC DEF. PLAYER OF THE YEAR
– Barbara Sullivan was named the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year on May 5 in a vote of the elite conference’s coaches.
– Sullivan is the first Notre Dame player to claim a league’s positional player of the year award outright since 2008 when Caitlin McKinney was named the BIG EAST Midfielder of the Year. Jillian Byers shared the 2009 BIG EAST Attack Player of the Year accolade.
FORTUNATE ONE
– An All-American as a freshman in 2014, Cortney Fortunato has increased her production both offensively and defensively as a senior.
– Fortunato is second in the ACC with her 56 goals this year and stands third with her 75 points.
– Fortunato’s 56 goals are the most by a Notre Dame player since Jillian Byers scored a school-record 83 in 2009.
– Just as impressively, Fortunato ranks second in the ACC with 29 turnovers despite only playing on two-thirds of the field.
– Fortunato also ranks third on the Irish with her 28 ground balls and fourth with 21 draw controls, matching her career-high on Friday against Ohio State with four draw controls.
CTRL-DALT-DELETE
– Sophomore Alex Dalton has done fine work this year stopping opponents on the defensive end, rushing up field in transition and helping the offense.
– Dalton has chipped in 18 caused turnovers and 40 ground balls to the defensive end, 38 draw controls in the midfield, plus seven goals and three assists for 10 points in the offensive theatre.
– Dalton has an active streak of nine straight games with multiple ground balls, starting with a five-ground ball effort against North Carolina on March 29.
SEXTON AN OFFENSIVE SEXTANT
– Junior Rachel Sexton is second on the Irish with both her 34 goals and 40 points on the year behind only Cortney Fortunato, to whom she plays a fine foil.
– Sexton’s contributions are crucial for the success of the Irish overall. Notre Dame is 10-2 this year when Sexton has at least two points and just 1-6 when she tallies just a single point or nothing. The lone Notre Dame win was on April 4 at Virginia when Sexton had just a single goal. The losses came when she scored five times in a Feb. 20 loss at Stanford and when she tallied twice in an ACC semifinal loss to North Carolina on April 24.
PEARSALL A BEAR FOR ALL
– Physical two-way midfielder Casey Pearsall has been a load for opponents to handle in all areas of the field this year.
– Pearsall started each of the first 15 games before suffering an ankle injury during the April 16 game against Northwestern, leaving a void in the Irish lineup.
– Pearsall remains second on the team in assists with her 17 on the year, a sum now topped by Cortney Fortunato’s 19. Pearsall also has 16 goals on the year for 33 points, tied for third on the squad despite missing four and a half games.
– Pearsall remains second to Barbara Sullivan with 42 draw controls, is fourth on the squad with 22 caused turnovers and claims 23 ground balls. Pearsall and Sullivan are the only players with at least 20 ground balls, draw controls and caused turnovers.
SWEET HOME CHICAGO
– The Irish have two direct ties to Chicagoland.
– Katherine Eilers is a native of Winnetka and a graduate of Loyola Academy. She has played in all 18 games with five starts, scoring four goals with a pair of assists for six points while grabbing 17 ground balls and controlling 10 draws. Eilers’ father, Pat, a Notre Dame alumnus, played for the Chicago Bears in 1995 and earned his M.B.A. from Northwestern.
– Anne Dooley, also a Loyola Academy graduate, has seen action in one game for Notre Dame this year. She is the younger sister for former Notre Dame player Grace Dooley (2011-14).
THE TIES THAT BIND
– While it is not unusual for men’s and women’s lacrosse teams on the same campus to be friendly, the relationship between the teams at Notre Dame is literally like family.
– Freshman Caroline Doyle’s older brother Conor Doyle is second on the men’s team with his 17 assists and 41 points this year while ranking third with 24 goals. He is the reigning ACC Offensive Player of the Week and a team captain.
– Junior Rachel Sexton’s younger brother John has appeared in all 12 games this year for the Irish as a reserve long-stick midfielder and defenseman. His 24 ground balls ties for fourth on the team.
– Freshman Rory Byrne has spent half of her life around the Notre Dame men’s team as her father, Gerry, is in his ninth year as an assistant coach. Her bother, Pierre, joined the team as a freshman this year and has seen action in six games, scoring twice.
– Irish men’s midfielder Trevor Brosco’s sister Kaitlyn played attack for the Irish women’s team from 2011-14. Trevor has appeared in nine games this year and has scored four times.
– Notre Dame’s men’s team is the No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament and has advanced to face Albany next weekend in the quarterfinals.
HEAD COACH Christine Halfpenny
– Christine Halfpenny is 46-27 (.630) in her fourth season as head coach at Notre Dame, having led the Fighting Irish to the NCAA Tournament in each of her four seasons.
– Halfpenny came from William & Mary where the Tribe won 10 games in each of the final four of her five years as head coach in Williamsburg.
– Before becoming a head coach, she worked as a collegiate assistant coach at Duke, Virginia Tech (her alma mater) and Brown.