Oct. 26, 2003
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – Senior forward Amy Warner scored just 90 seconds into the game and added a second-half goal while the Notre Dame defense allowed just one shot on goal in another dominating display, as the second-ranked Irish women’s soccer team posted a 2-0 win at Seton Hall in Sunday-afternoon action at Carroll Field – yielding a 10-game shutout streak that ranks fifth in Division I women’s soccer history and second-longest since the late 1980s.
Notre Dame (18-0-1) – which elected to rest senior central defender and All-America candidate Melissa Tancredi – is one game shy of posting the fourth unbeaten regular season in the program’s history, with the final regular-season game set for Wednesday afternoon versus Michigan (4:00 EST, at Alumni Field). The Irish also will play host to Miami in next weekend’s BIG EAST quarterfinals, on Nov. 1 or 2 (date and time are TBA).
Notre Dame now has held 24 consecutive fall opponents to 0-1 goals (plus all five games in the ’03 spring season), matching the team record for consecutive games without multiple goals allowed (the 2000 Irish squad also went 24 games without allowing multiple goals).
Seton Hall (5-11-1) played its typical defensive-oriented game, after holding its previous 16 opponents to a total of just 22 goals.
Sophomore Erika Bohn now owns a personal 11-game shutout streak spanning 969 minutes, longest by a Division I women’s goalkeeper since 1999 and fifth overall on that NCAA list (just 35 minutes behind the 1999 shutout streak posted by Tiffany DeCoff of Holy Cross). Bohn (0.22) and the Irish (0.26) both lowered their NCAA-leading goals-against averages, with Notre Dame now owning 14 shutouts in the last 16 games while Bohn has yielded just one goal in the last 15-plus games (North Texas scored versus backup Nikki Westfall, prior to the 10-game shutout streak).
The 1998 Santa Clara squad (18) is the only team since 1989 that has compiled a longer shutout streak than Notre Dame’s current 10-game streak. The Irish have allowed just 14 shots on goal during the shutout streak, including seven games with one opponent shot on goal.
Notre Dame pushed its season scoring edge to 63-5 after holding an 18-6 edge in overall shots and limiting Seton Hall to just one shot on goal, marking the 16th straight game that the Irish have held its opponent to 0-3 shots on goal. Notre Dame also has not faced a deficit in its last 16-plus games and has trailed only once all season, for seven minutes in the early moments of the 2-1 win over Arizona State (Sept. 5).
Warner registered Notre Dame’s second-quickest goal of the season at the 1:30 mark, via a pass from freshman midfielder Jill Krivacek. Warner raced into the right side of the box and sent a shot inside the near-right post for her ninth goal of the season and 11th career game-winning goal.
Sophomore forward Katie Thorlakson – who had two goals and an assist in Friday’s 3-0 win at Rutgers – set up the second goal with a long entry pass, after receiving the ball from junior central back Gudrun Gunnarsdottir. Thorlakson’s pass sprung Warner behind the defense for a 12-yard shot from the right side, with the speedy senior one-timing a crossing shot into the left side of the net for her 37th career goal with the Irish, good for 12th in the ND record book (60:02).
Warner now leads the Irish with a career-best 30 points (10 goals, 10 assists), with just four players in the nation entering the week with more than 10 assists (17 had more than 30 points). Her first goal marked the eighth time this season that the Irish have scored in the first seven minutes while Warner became the eighth different Notre Dame player to post a multiple-goal game this season (including two each from Thorlakson, Mary Boland and Amanda Guertin).
NOTE UPDATES – The only teams with longer shutout streaks in NCAA Division I women’s soccer history are the ’98 Santa Clara team (18), two North Carolina teams (13 in ’89, 12 in ’87) and the 1984 N.C. State squad (12) … the top three individual shutouts streaks in the NCAA record book include: UNC’s Anne Sherow (1,670 in ’87 and ’88) and Jenni Branam (1,114 in ’99) and SCU’s Crystal Gordon (1,269 in ’98)… the Irish now are 75-7-2 (.905)in regular-season BIG EAST games and are unbeaten in seven previous BIG EAST Tournament appearances (18-0-0) … the winner of the ND-Miami game will face the winner of the Rutgers at Boston College quarterfinal (the other matchups include Villanova at UConn and St. John’s at West Virginia) … ND’s diverse offensive attack can be seen in the fact that Sunday marked the first time Warner has opened the scoring in 14 games (since the Sept. 11 game at St. John’s) … Warner’s 11 GWGs rank ninth in the ND record book, two behind former teammate Meotis Erikson (’01) … the Irish now are 10-0-0 in ’03 when returning to the field two days after a previous game (27-2 scoring edge), compared to just 4-5-0 in ’02 regular-season “turnaround games” (with just an 18-16 scoring edge) … the ’97 squad is the only other team in ND history to go this far in a season without allowing more than five goals (that team yielded its sixth goal in the 21st game) … the three previous ND teams to go unbeaten in the regular season all went 23-0-1 before losing (the ’94 team lost in the NCAA finals while the ’97 and ’00 teams lost in the NCAA semifinals) … Warner’s 37 goals leave her eight shy of the ND career top-10 list (’92 grad Suzie Zilvitis had 43 and ’94 grad. Alison Lester 45) … she is three points shy of becoming the 14th ND player ever to reach the 100-point milestone … the Irish now are 95-8-2 (.914) in all-time games vs. BIG EAST teams …Sunday’s first goal trails only Mary Boland’s score vs. West Virginia (1:24) among ND’s quickest in ’03 … ND now owns a 34-3 first-half scoring edge (compared to 12-10 in ’02), with the Irish allowing just 20 first-half goals in the last three seasons (61 games) … fifth-year ND head coach Randy Waldrum is nearing his 200th career victory as a Division I women’s soccer coach (199-66-16, including 92-16-4 at ND, plus six seasons at Tulsa and three at Baylor; he is 275-121-23 in 23 overall seasons as a men’s and women’s coach) … Warner appeared in her 68th consecutive game while making her 62nd straight start … fifth-year D Vanessa Pruzinsky logged her 91st career game and 89th start (10th in ND history, two behind Cindy Daws) … Bohn is 27-1-1 in her last 29 starts with the Irish (10 GA in those games) … ND extended its team record for consecutive shutout minutes to 944 … since allowing a game-tying goal by SCU on Sept. 21 (1-1; ND won 2-1), the Irish have outscored the opposition 36-1 … ND now owns a +23 ratio of goals scored (63) to opponent shots on goal (40) … ND has led for 75% of the minutes in 2003 while trailing for less than 1% of the ’03 minutes (0.4%) … since the 26th-minute goal by Oklahoma, ND has allowed just 2 goals, 61 shots (22 on goal) and 36 corners in the last 15-plus games … there now are just seven teams left in all of Division I women’s soccer with 0-1 losses (out of 297 teans): unbeaten ND and UNC, three ranked teams with one loss (UCLA, Princeton and Cal Poly) and two unranked teams with one loss (Hofstra and Southeast Louisiana).
#2 Notre Dame (18-0-1, 6-0-0) 1 1 – 2
Seton Hall (5-11-1, 2-4-0) 0 0 – 0
ND 1. Amy Warner (Jill Krivacek) 1:30; ND 2. Warner (Katie Thorlakson, Gudrun Gunnarsdottir) 60:02.
Shots: ND 5-13 – 18, SHU 2-4 – 6.
Corner Kicks: ND 2-2 – 4, SHU 0-3 – 3.
Saves: ND 1 (Erika Bohn), SHU 8 (Buffy Wojciehowski).
Fouls: ND 13, SHU 11.
Offsides: ND 7, SHU 0.