No. 8 Notre Dame is set to host its second-straight game to open the season when it takes on Richmond on Saturday afternoon at Loftus Sports Center.
The Irish (1-0) opened the regular season with a 10-7 win over Detroit Mercy on Feb. 11. In that game, the score was tied 4-4 at halftime before the Titans (1-2) scored two goals to take a 6-4 lead early in the third quarter. Notre Dame scored the next six goals while only allowing one the rest of the way, however, to pick up its first win of the season.
Sophomore midfielder Bryan Costabile scored a career-high five goals and added two assists for a seven-point outing. Senior attack Mikey Wynne added two goals of his own, while senior midfielder Brendan Collins, junior attack Ryder Garnsey and junior midfielder Brendan Gleason each notched one.
The Spiders (2-1), meanwhile, are coming off of a 13-10 victory over Mount St. Mary’s on Tuesday. Irish head coach Kevin Corrigan knows his team will face a tough test from the Spiders (2-1) on Saturday.
“They are a very smart and very well-coached team,” Corrigan said. “They play with a really good sense of themselves and who they are and what they can and can’t do, and they play really good defense and just don’t give away a lot of plays over the course of a game.”
Corrigan said he is happy his team has had a few weeks in between its first and second games of the season. Corrigan believes the extra time and rest will benefit his team in fixing some of the problems they encountered against Detroit Mercy.
“I think we were lucky we had a weekend open where we could work really hard last week to get better on things we knew we really needed to get better at and still have some time for our guys to get their legs back and get ready for this weekend,” Corrigan said. “I’m really happy that we had that extra time to get our guys prepared because it was something we needed, and our guys did a good job of working hard for us to make some progress.”
Corrigan said the goalie competition that took place during the preseason was settled after the first game. He reiterated that freshman goaltender Matt Schmidt will remain the starter for Saturday’s game, while senior goalkeeper Owen Molloy will serve as the backup.
“I think Owen will do a good job in the role that he’s in right now, but Matt is our starter,” Corrigan said.
After this game, Notre Dame’s next three games will be against Maryland, Denver and Virginia, respectively. However, Corrigan said his team is not looking ahead to those matches yet and its focus is on Richmond this weekend.
“We don’t look at what’s down the road,” Corrigan said. “We’re just concerned about what’s in front of us right now. Pretty clearly for our team, we have to focus on ourselves and on what is in front of us, and that is all we are worried about doing. It will all play out in the end, but it is not something that you spend a lot of time now thinking about Denver and Virginia. We got Richmond on Saturday. We can’t afford to go any further ahead than that.”
The game is scheduled to start at noon on Saturday afternoon at Loftus Sports Center.
