Saturday night Notre Dame men’s soccer fell 2-0 to Louisville at Alumni Stadium.
The Irish held even with the No. 11 Cardinals for most of the match, leading the shot battle 15-5 and controlling large swaths of possession in the first half. But in the second half, Louisville made their chances count. Konstantinos Georgallides fired home a feed from Sander Roed in the 58th minute to give the Cardinals a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Despite several Irish forays into the box in response to conceding, it would be the Cardinals who found the back of the net again. Brandon McManus notched his third goal of the season in the 81st minute, putting a dagger in any hopes of a Notre Dame comeback.
After the game, head coach Chad Riley expressed disappointment that an impressive showing by his side resulted in defeat.
“I think before their goal we created some good chances, and we’ve gotta take some of those, so that’s a little bit frustrating for us,” Riley said. “Any time you leave a team in the game that has dangerous attacking players like Louisville you leave yourself open to that. And then when you start pushing a little bit [after conceding the first goal] they get the second one, which can happen, and it kinda kills you.”
Riley did note that despite the result the team performed better than they did midweek against Indiana, even though the scoreline was more lopsided than the loss against the Hoosiers.
“I think the process piece of it was great,” said Riley. “There were moments of growth which are hard to see when you don’t get the result. Soccer’s one of the few games where you can play well and not win, so I think it’ll be hard to see the positives right now but there was a lot of growth. So now we’ve just gotta continue to focus on the process.”
Looking ahead, the road doesn’t get easier for the Irish in the near future. Notre Dame next heads down to North Carolina on Friday night to take on Duke, currently ranked as the No. 2 team in the nation. The Blue Devils will also be looking for revenge after last season, as the Irish topped Duke 2-0 to win the 2021 ACC tournament championship. The Duke match will be the first game of a two-match road swing, with Notre Dame traveling to Chicago four days later to take on UIC.
Riley stressed the importance of resetting after the loss and moving down the schedule with a refreshed mentality.
“We gotta just stick together and recover, the good thing is we have a week to prepare for our next match,” Riley said. “I think you’ve just gotta take it one day at a time. And that’s hard to do early in the season, but I think it’s very easy to do now and I think we’ve gotta make each day count.”
Notre Dame will take on Duke Friday night in Durham at 6 p.m. ET. The match will be broadcasted on the ACC Network.
Contact J.J. Post at jpost2@nd.edu.
