Notre Dame knocks out Smith, Seton Hall in semifinals
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Associate Sports Editor
PISCATAWAY, N.J.
The Notre Dame women's soccer team's 5-0 win over the Seton Hall Pirates may have taken 90 minutes but as far as Seton Hall was concerned, the game was over with 26 minutes and 18 seconds left in the first half.
That was when Kelly Smith, the Big East offensive player of the year and leading goal scorer in the country with 27, went down with an ankle injury.
Smith was dribbling at the top of the box with her back to the Irish goal and Irish junior captain Kelly Lindsey was tightly covering Smith when senior Irish defender Kara Brown came over to double team the senior from England. When Brown came over and bumped her, Smith fell and reinjured the ankle she sprained a week earlier against Providence. Smith left the game and returned briefly in the second half — long after the Irish established control of the game.
When Smith went down, the whole game changed, according to Irish head coach Randy Waldrum.
"She is the only real legitimate threat to score that they have so it put a lot of pressure of the rest of their team," Waldrum said. "We are a lot different because we are deeper to we don't have those kind of problems."
While Smith's absence did change the game, the Irish defense did not relax, according to Jen Grubb, the Big East Defender of the Year.
"I think it changed for us because we obviously weren't concerned with their best player being on the field," the senior Irish captain said. "But they were a good team so just because she wasn't out there didn't mean we could let down."
Even before Smith was injured, she wasn't much of a factor in the game. The Irish offense controlled the ball for most of the game and kept the action in the Pirates end of the field. The Irish also kept Seton Hall goalkeeper Leah Miller busy, registering 34 shots. Irish senior Jenny Streiffer scored the game winner just six minutes into the game when she headed a cross from Meotis Erikson to the far post. Erikson blasted a throw in from Brown high across the box to Streiffer who was waiting on the far side of the net.
When the Pirates did manage to clear the ball to Smith, she was immediately double teamed by the Irish defense that has given up only three goals in regular season conference games this year. The close defense of Smith was much different from the last time the Irish and the Pirates met when Smith was allowed to roam free and tallied a goal and an assist.
"The last game we let her run at us too much and every time she does that she gains confidence," Waldrum said. "I thought Kelly Lindsey did a great job on her and Jen Grubb and Kara Brown came up and doubled on her well. We always tried to put a couple of players around her whenever she had the ball."
The best chance the Pirates had to score on the day came off the free kick following Smith's injury. Seton Hall's kick sailed over the wall of Irish defenders and toward the top of the goal. Irish goalkeeper LaKeysia Beene made her best save of the weekend when she leaped and deflected the shot over the top of the net for one of her two saves of the day.
Beene shared the shutout with sophomore Elizabeth Wagner who replaced the senior in the 74th minute with the Irish victory already assured.
The Irish team that neutralized Smith Friday was a much different squad than Irish fans saw in their last three wins over Wisconsin, Indiana and Miami. The mental errors and sluggish play of those three games were gone and the Irish looked much sharper. The Irish have finally begun to focus as the games get more important, Grubb said.
"I think we have just realized that at this point in the season we can't afford to be sluggish and get down a goal or two," she said. "We can't give them any more confidence than they already have. We know we have to come out and play well."
While the defense was containing the Seton Hall offense, the Irish offense was dictating the flow of the game with ball possession and early goals. Fourteen minutes after Streiffer scored, Erikson got her first goal of the game. Brown fired a cross which Erikson deflected to the left of the goal for her 13th goal of the year.
The Irish offense was ready to play from the start, according to Erikson.
"We just came out with the mental set that we had to come out and start playing well early," she said.
Erikson lit up the scoreboard again early in the second half. In the 62nd minute, Big East Rookie of the Year Vanessa Pruzinsky fed Erikson between two defenders for the assist as Erikson beat the keeper to the left side to put the Irish up 3-0.
Erikson picked up her sixth point of the day and Streiffer tailed her 70th career assist on senior Jenny Heft's goal in the 67th minute. Erikson fed Streiffer who fired a shot on goal. Miller could not grab the shot and the rebound rolled out toward Heft who was following the shot. Heft put the ball past Miller for her 77th career goal. Streiffer's assist made her just the third player in NCAA history to tally 70 assists in a career.
Mia Sarkesian added an insurance goal in the 86th minute when junior Monica Gonzalez fed her streaking behind the defense for a one-on-one with Miller. Sarkesian easily beat Miller to close out the Irish scoring.
All Sports Stories for Monday, November 8, 1999
