Dec. 11, 2004
Three Notre Dame women’s soccer players – fifth-year central defender Melissa Tancredi (Ancaster, Ont.), junior forward Katie Thorlakson (Langley, B.C.) and sophomore midfielder Jen Buczkowski (Elk Grove, Ill.) – have received All-America honors from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, representing the most NSCAA All-Americans from one Notre Dame team since three also were honored in 1999.
Thorlakson and Tancredi – despite ranking among the final-15 candidates for the Hermann Trophy – were relegated to the NSCAA second team All-America squad while Buczkowski collected third-team honors.
Thorlakson was not included among the four forwards on the first team, despite leading the nation in points (70) and assists (24) while ranking second in goals (23). Only one player in the history of Division I women’s soccer – former North Carolina great Mia Hamm (32G-33A, in ’92) – ever has totaled more goals and more assists in a season than Thorlakson’s ’04 production. Thorlakson’s many impressive numbers from the ’04 season included scoring or assisting on 24 of Notre Dame’s final 28 goals (each of the final six) and closing the season with an 11-game point streak that featured 12 goals and 11 assists (plus 3 gamewinning goals, 5 GW assists).
Thorlakson’s 70 points in ’04 ended up two shy of the Notre Dame record but she blew away the Irish record for points in one postseason with 27 (9G-9A, also both ND postseason records), including team records for points (14), assists (6) and GWAs (4) in one NCAA Tournament.
Melissa Tancredi’s hard-nosed play and domination in the air led a 2004 Irish defense that allowed just 13 goals, 71 shots on goal, 48 corner kicks and 8 deficits in 27 games.
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Tancredi – also an NSCAA 2nd-team All-American and a Hermann Trophy final-15 candidate in ’03 – was one of just two defenders among the final-15 candidates for the ’04 Hermann Trophy yet she failed to be included among the three defenders who earned first-team All-America honors. The eighth Notre Dame player ever to earn multiple NSCAA All-America honors, she led an ’04 Irish defense that finished 4th in the nation with a 0.51 season goals-against average and posted a nation’s-best 16 shutouts while limiting the opposition to just 71 shots on goal (2.6 per game) and 48 corner kicks (1.8). The Tancredi-led defense held 24 of 27 opponents to 0-1 goals (22 of the final 23) and yielded just six deficits all season, totaling 101 minutes.
The omission of a player from the national championship team on the NSCAA first team All-America list is nearly unprecedented in the 23-year history of the NCAA tournament. In all but one of the 22 previous seasons, at least one player from the national champions was an NSCAA first team All-American – including 16 seasons with multiple first-teamers from the national champs (all but ’83, ’94, ’95, ’98 and ’99). The previous three national champions each included a pair of NSCAA first team All-Americans.
North Carolina’s 2000 national championship team suffered a similar snub from the NSCAA, with no NSCAA first team All-Americans for that ’00 UNC team. But unlike Notre Dame’s 2004 team – which started 15-0-0 and did not lose until the BIG EAST title game, en route to a 25-1-1 final record – the 2000 UNC team bounced back from a rare “off-year,” opening with a 12-3-0 record before winning its final nine games (including a 2-1 NCAA semifinal over top-ranked ND). The most notable omission from that 2000 first-team list was UNC forward Meredith Florance, who totaled 26 goals and 8 assists as the Tar Heels leading scorer (she later was a Soccer America first team All-American and received the Honda Broderick Award for women’s soccer, with ND’s Anne Makinen collecting all the other 2000 player-of-the-year awards).
Jen Buczkowski “pulled all the strings” for an Irish midfield that helped Notre Dame dominate possession throughout the 2004 season.
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Buczkowski ran the show for a midfield group that led the way in Notre Dame’s season-long domination of possession, with the Irish racking up a 70-14 scoring edge, plus a 557-155 margin in shots (avg. 21-6), 274-71 in shots on goal (10-3) and 158-48 in corner kicks (6-2). She ranked third on the ’04 squad with 27 points (8G-11A), including four gamewinning goals in a five-game stretch (one coming in the final minute at Georgetown and two in games vs. top-20 foe Boston College). She also had 1G-1A in the 5-2 win over 4th-ranked Santa Clara and has appeared in all 51 games during her Notre Dame career.
The NSCAA has yet to announce its all-region teams and regional coaches of the year (stay tuned for that information early next week).
Final updated bio’s on ND’s three All-Americans will be included in later releases but here are some additional notes in regards to the All-America release:
Notre Dame women’s soccer players now have combined for NSCAA All-America honors 34 times (by 17 players), with 31 of those selections coming in the past 11 years … only UNC (36) has totaled more NSCAA All-Americans during that 11-year stretch (’94-’04), with Portland a distant third on that list (20), followed by Santa Clara (18), Connecticut (17), Florida, Nebraska and Penn State (each with 15).
The Irish have produced at least one NSCAA All-American in each of the past 12 seasons … this marks the program’s 9th season with multiple players on the NSCAA lists … three previous ND teams have produced more NSCAA All-Americans (6 in ’96, 5 in ’97, 4 in ’94) while the ’95 and ’99 teams also had three (plus two each in ’93, ’98 and ’03).
ND joined Big 12 Conference champion Kansas (3) with the more players on the NSCAA All-America team while four other schools had two each.
Tancredi is the 8th Notre Dame player ever to earn multiple NSCAA All-America honors, with that group including three rare four-time honorees – midfielders Holly Manthei (’94-’97) and Anne Makinen (’97-’00) and defender Jen Grubb (’96-’99) – plus midfielder Cindy Daws (’93, ’94, ’96), goalkeeper Jen Renola (’94-’96), defender Kate Sobrero (’95-’97) and forward Jenny Streiffer (’96, ’99).
Thorlakson is the 5th Notre Dame forward (six times) ever to earn NSCAA All-America honors, joining two-time honoree Streiffer (3rd team in ’96 and ’99) and 1st-teamer Amy Warner (’03) as the program’s only All-America forwards since ’94 (when Rosella Guerrero was a 2nd-teamer, with Alison Lester also on the 2nd team in ’93).
The five ND defenders who have earned NSCAA All-America honors include Grubb, Sobrero, Tancredi and 2nd-teamers Monica Gonzalez (’01) and Candace Chapman (’02; converted to forward in ’04 after missing ’03 due to injury).
Buczkowski joins an elite group of ND midfielders who have earned NSCAA All-America honors, taking her place among former Hermann Trophy winners Daws and Makinen and NCAA all-time assist leader Manthei (midfielder Ragen Coyne was ND’s first All-American, in ’92).
The BIG EAST tied for the second-most NSCAA All-Americans (5) among the nation conferences … the midwest and northeast were well-represented on the NSCAA teams, with six players from the Big Ten, five from the BIG EAST, three from the Ivy League and one from the Atlantic-10 … UConn senior F Kristen Graczyk and West Virginia senior F Laura Kane were named to the 3rd team.