Women's Soccer: Irish Top WVU
October 01, 2004 10:48 PM | General
October 1, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The No. 20 West Virginia University women's soccer team showed its true talent tonight despite falling 3-1 to No. 1 Notre Dame on Friday night at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
The Mountaineers (8-3-0, 3-2-0) battled the Fighting Irish (11-0-0, 4-0-0) for 90 minutes of high intensity, high impact soccer. Down 1-0 after an early score by Notre Dame's Christie Shaner, West Virginia maintained its calm and proved that it could get dangerous with one of the country's four remaining unbeaten teams. The Irish, however, retained their 1-0 lead at the half.
It was WVU who took advantage of an early scoring opportunity in the second half when senior Ashley Weimer and freshman Ashley Banks set up junior forward Rachael Minnich's sixth goal of the season in the 52nd minute.
The match remained knotted at 1-1 until 75:33 when the Irish's Kim Lorenzen scored the game-winner off an assist from Lizzie Reed. Notre Dame added an insurance goal when Candace Chapman found Katie Thorlakson in the match's 76th minute.
Despite the 3-1 final, West Virginia and Notre Dame battled evenly throughout the entire contest. The Mountaineers took 13 shots compared to the Irish's 17.
"When you play a team of this caliber, you have to be intense for 90 minutes," head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said of Notre Dame. "We might have lost focus and intensity for a total of five minutes tonight and they took advantage of that."
West Virginia returns to action at 1 p.m., on Sunday, Oct. 3, against Syracuse in the first game of a double-header with the Mountaineer men's team as part of Super Soccer Sunday.
West Virginia 1, Notre Dame 3
Scoring: UND - Shaner (Thorlakson) 2:38; WVU - Minnich (Weimer, Banks) 51:33; UND - Lorenzen (Reed) 74:50; UND - Thorlakson (Chapman)85:42.
Shots: WVU - 13; UND - 17
Corners: WVU -4; UND - 8
Fouls: WVU - 7; UND - 10
Goalkeeping: WVU - Lana Bannerman, 3 saves, 3 GA, 90:00; UND - Lauren Karas 3 saves, 1 GA 60:25; UND - Erica Bohn 2 saves, 0 GA, 29:35
