The intensity in South Bend, Indiana was high yesterday as Louisville visited the Fighting Irish for a match.
This was Norte Dame’s fourth game in a 10-day span, and it certainly was off to a rough start for the team as they fell 4-1 within the first eight minutes of play. The Irish are a comeback team, and then scored three goals in the next two minutes to tie the score at 4-4.
Head coach Christine Halfpenny said she wasn’t nervous about the Irish trailing Louisville for the first half of the game, because she enjoys the way her team reacts when they are fighting for the lead.
Some standouts for the Irish this game include sophomore Kiera McMullan, who had one assist and scored four goals during the game. Cortney Fortunato, who has been a top player all season, also had a very successful match, scoring her fifth hat trick this year.
Notre Dame played with split goalies—both Allie Murray and Liz O’Sullivan shared time in the net, which proved to be a part of the Irish’s success. They both have strengths, and sharing goal time truly helped them deny the Card’s attempts at goals, especially in the second half of the game.
Louisville is a strong, physical team who started out great and were leading going into the half. They have a very successful way of controlling the ball which was tough on the Irish. The Cards also are a great scoring team and have a skilled offense.
Louisville’s Nikki Boltja is one of the top contenders in the NCAA and she has been a standout ever since she joined the Cards three years ago. Now a junior, she leads the team in scoring and has an All-American and First Team title under her belt. The game against ND was just as successful for her as most matches, because she continually answers the other team’s goal by scoring one of her own. Boltja is an extremely competitive and explosive player, and definitely helped Louisville keep their lead over the Irish as long as they did.
This was a very close match between two strong teams, but in the end, Notre Dame came out on top leaving Louisville behind 12-9.
