Sept. 21, 2004
Two Notre Dame women’s soccer players have been recognized by the BIG EAST Conference for their leading roles in last week’s wins at Connecticut (1-0) and Syracuse (2-1). Senior outside back Kate Tulisiak was named the BIG EAST defensive player of the week while freshman forward Amanda Cinalli received the rookie-of-the-week honor.
Tulisiak – who has emerged as a key regular in the Irish defense, after playing in a reserve role her first two seasons and missing most of ’03 due to a back injury – registered the first point of her career in the win at UConn, intercepting a late pass and providing the endline cross for Cinalli’s goal. She also helped the Irish defense allow just one goal, 14 total shots, four shots on goal and three corner kicks over the course of the two road wins.
Amanda Cinalli has made a big impact in the first month of her rookie season, including last week’s gamewinning goal at UConn (photos by Pete LaFleur).
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Cinalli delivered the big goal in the UConn game and then provided her own endline assist (from the left side) to set up Jen Buczkowski’s opening goal at Syracuse. The prep All-American had two near-goals earlier in the UConn game and currently ranks fourth on the team with 11 points (4 goals, 3 assists), just one point behind Buczkowski and Candace Chapman.
Cinalli has been a key forward addition as the Irish replace graduated top scorers Amy Warner and Amanda Guertin while coping with the loss of senior leader Mary Boland (broken leg two weeks ago) and the absence of three of Cinalli’s classmates who also are elite forwards (Kerri Hanks- is training with the U.S. Under-19 team, Susan Pinnick was injured in a summer van accident with her club team and Jannica Tjeder missed five games with an ankle injury before easing back into the lineup last week).
Notre Dame’s field players already have combined for nearly half of the BIG EAST weekly awards this season (6 of 13, excluding the goalkeeper award), with junior forward Katie Thorlakson twice being named the league’s offensive player of the week while fifth-year central back Melissa Tancredi earned the defensive honor in back-to-back weeks. Rutgers (2) is the only other team with multiple honorees for the weekly BIG EAST offensive/defensive/rookie awards.
The Irish goalkeepers have faced just 19 shots all season (2.4 per game) and thus have not been viable candidates for the BIG EAST weekly goalkeeper awards, due to their teammates steady domination of possession and control of the middle third. Even when including the goalkeeper awards, Notre Dame (6) still has double the number of weekly awards as any other school (Rutgers and Villanova each have produced three weekly honorees).