Louisville women lose to Notre Dame

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 18th-ranked Louisville women’s soccer team dropped its first home game of the season with a 5-0 defeat to No. 5 Notre Dame on Sunday afternoon at Cardinal Park.

With the loss, the Cardinals are 8-2-0 overall and 2-1-0 in BIG EAST Conference games, while Notre Dame improved to 9-1-0 overall and 3-0-0 in league action. Louisville also dropped to 4-1-0 this season at Cardinal Park.

“Tactically, we weren’t at the level we needed to be to compete today and Notre Dame’s speed forced us to read the game faster than we have to in practice and faster than we’ve had to in any game we’ve played so far,” said Louisville head coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes. “Overall, we have to find the positives in this game. I know statistically it doesn’t sound like there are many, but we have a young team and we have to make sure that even though we’re disappointed, we’re not discouraged. We have to move forward and get better from this game.”

The Fighting Irish opened the scoring in the first 10 minutes of Sunday’s game as Taylor Knaack scored into the lower right corner from five yards out for a 1-0 advantage at the 9:06 mark of the first half. The goal was setup on a cross from the right side from Melissa Henderson for her team-leading fifth assist of the season, while Jessica Schuveiller was credited with her second assist of the season on the goal.

Notre Dame added to its lead less than 15 minutes later as Henderson found the lower right corner of the net from six yards away in the 24th minute. The goal came after Henderson gathered a deflected crossing pass inside the penalty box.
 
The score remained that way until the 72nd minute when Henderson scored her second goal of the game and her team-leading sixth of the season. After taking a through ball from teammate Elizabeth Tucker, Henderson found the lower right corner from the left side of the goal for the 3-0 lead. The assist for Tucker was her first of the season.

The Irish added two more goals in the final three minutes as Erica Iantorno scored an unassisted goal from 14 yards out at the 87:45 mark and Ellen Jantsch connected from six yards out on an unassisted goal at 89:33 for the final margin. The goal for Iantorno was her second of the season, while the goal for Jantsch was her first of the year.

Overall, Notre Dame finished with a 22-4 advantage on shots, including a 16-3 margin in shots-on-goal. Louisville finished with a 4-3 edge in corner kicks, while the Irish were whistled for nine fouls to the Cardinals’ seven. Louisville sophomore goalkeeper Taylor Vancil (South Elgin, Ill./St. Charles North HS) finished with a career best 11 saves, while Notre Dame’s Nikki Weiss had three stops in the game.
Up next, Louisville continues its five-game homestand against BIG EAST Conference foe Pittsburgh on Friday at 7 p.m., ET at Cardinal Park.