Women's Lacrosse: No. 7 Blue Devils will test Irish
By: CHRIS COLEMAN
Sports Writer
It's tournament time for the women's lacrosse team.
While it may not be the NCAA tournament that the Irish are ultimately playing to reach, this weekend's three-team round robin hosted by the Irish has some perennial powers matching up. Today the Irish face the sixth ranked Duke Blue Devils, and on Sunday challenge the 12th-ranked Yale Bulldogs. The two visiting teams play each other on Saturday.
This is this first time the Irish have hosted this yearly event.
"We are excited about the home games," said captain Kathryn Lam. "They [Duke and Yale] are a both aggressive talented squads. We are ready to compete."
Duke, who Notre Dame plays today at 4 p.m. at Moose Krause Field, is the highest ranked team the Irish have faced. They are also one of the more consistently successful programs in the country.
"These guys have been in the top five for the past four years," Irish offensive assistant Danielle Gallagher said. "They've got a couple big threats on attack, and on top of that, their goalkeeper is outstanding. That's going to pose a very big problem."
The Notre Dame-Duke game will be a match up of the stingy Irish defense versus a potent Blue Devil attack. The Irish defense, the best in the nation in goals allowed (6.44 per game) going into this week, will need to deal with an offense that has serious scoring threats.
The offensive-defensive battle will include two high school teammates facing off against each other. Notre Dame's Kelly McCardell played four years defending behind Duke's second leading scorer, Lauren Gallagher, at W.C. Henderson in West Chester, Pa.
"We know about their key players. ... Lauren, she's awesome." McCardell said. "We are going to look more towards communication and team defense: not worrying about who is covering who, just stop the ball."
Jen White, Notre Dame's keeper, said she wouldn't be approaching this game any differently. Her mechanics stay the same.
"It's just like any other game," said White, who has won Big East Defensive Player of the Week twice. "The routine is the same. Any given day any team can be awesome, or not great."
On the offensive end the Irish look to sustain their multifaceted scoring attack where five girls have scored in the double digits. The Irish look to use this diversity when the attention is focused on Danielle Shearer, Alissa Moser and Natalie Loftus.
"We have to have a great team effort," said Gallagher. "In games like this you're looking for the players that haven't been as much of an impact to play more of a role. Somebody else has to step it up other than Dani [Shearer], Alissa [Moser], and Nats [Loftus]."
Fortunately for the Irish, Anne Riley and Meredith Simon have been contributing on offense more in the last few games, and Lauren Fischer has been scoring consistently throughout the year.
The No. 7 Blue Devils started the season ranked third, but lost games to tough ACC competition, to make their overall record 6-4. They go into this weekend knowing the importance of these out-of-conference games.
"Our kids know that every weekend, every game for us, is critical," Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. "We are looking forward to tomorrow and Saturday."
The 12th-ranked Yale squad comes to Notre Dame with an 8-2 record and is also looking to make a national statement before returning to Ivy League play.
Notre Dame goes into this weekend coming off an emotional one-goal loss to Ohio State. But they are not down on themselves.
"Its good we get to come back so quickly from a game like Ohio State," said head coach Tracy Coyne. "Our ultimate goal is to win the Big East and get to the tournament. If we can gain some valuable learning experiences from a loss, that's good.
"We know we haven't been playing our best game since we won over Syracuse," McCardell said. "As a team we know its time to turn it around and get back on track."
The Irish get that chance today.
The game starts at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday's game vs. Yale starts at 1:00 p.m.
All Sports Stories for Friday, April 12, 2002
