It’s been a special month for Notre Dame women’s lacrosse. Since dropping a second consecutive home game to Virginia on March 9, the Irish have locked into form, winning six consecutive games since 2020. Perhaps more impressively, Notre Dame hasn’t had a six-game winning streak run this late into the season in 20 years.
The recent run has featured a little bit of everything. It started with a 4-0 road trip in which the Irish gutted out three straight one-goal wins. It then took the Irish home, where they put on a record-setting show against Pitt and walloped Duke in a top-25 matchup on Senior Day.
Now, the Irish leave South Bend and gear up for a season-ending road trip that includes three games in seven days. Before heading to Virginia Tech on Saturday and Louisville on April 18, Notre Dame (11-2, 5-2 ACC) will visit Liberty (4-9, 1-2 Atlantic Sun) for both teams’ final non-conference tilt. The Irish enter the game ranked fifth in the country by Inside Lacrosse and number one in the nation by USA Lacrosse Magazine.
Notre Dame hunting rare non-conference feat
Playing difficult schedules year in and year out, Notre Dame understandably takes some lumps here and there throughout the season. Usually that happens in both conference play and non-conference play, but that hasn’t been the case in 2024.
For just the second time since joining the ACC, the Irish have a chance to finish the regular season with an unbeaten record in non-conference action. Liberty, Notre Dame’s seventh and final non-ACC opponent, closes out an intense part of the schedule.
Notre Dame opened up the non-conference slate with back-to-back 20-goal performances in wins over Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan in the first half of February. Then, the Irish squared off with a top-ranked and defending national champion Northwestern program that had defeated them in nine of the last 11 matchups. With that showdown came a signature win, as remarkable defensive play led Notre Dame to a 14-10 win at home on Feb. 16.
After finishing its 4-0 start with a 25-3 defeat of Butler, Notre Dame returned to non-conference action during its road trip of games. Visiting Brown, an East Coast opponent ranked inside the top 25, Notre Dame pulled out a 16-15 win on the first of three straight game-winning goals by senior midfielder Mary Kelly Doherty. Non-conference win number six, a 20-6 takedown of Mercer, ended that four-game trip.
With its three upcoming games, Notre Dame also has a shot at its best regular-season record of the 21st century. The Irish can accomplish that feat by going 3-0 down the home stretch.
Callahan, Halfpenny hit milestones
A year of remarkable individual achievements took another turn for Notre Dame on Saturday. As the Irish defeated Duke by a 19-7 score on Senior Day, senior goalie Lilly Callahan and head coach Christine Halfpenny hit major milestones.
During the game, Callahan reached 250 career saves on her fourth and final stop against Duke. With Callahan joining the list, eight past and present members of Notre Dame women’s lacrosse reside in the 250-save club.
Only a full-time starter since last year, Callahan has risen in the ranks quickly with two similarly impressive seasons in the cage. Last year, she became the second goalkeeper in program history to appear in 21 games, earning 15 wins with a save percentage of .448. This season, in 13 starts, Callahan already has 11 victories while holding her save percentage steady at .426.
When Saturday’s game ended, Halfpenny had a moment of her own, becoming the head coach with the most wins in program history. Her 148th career win moved her past Tracy Coyne, the coach who got Notre Dame women’s lacrosse off the ground in the 2000s.
Liberty living in the ACC
By the regular season’s end, Liberty will have played just as many games against ACC opponents as opponents from its own conference, the Atlantic Sun. Located in Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty sits right in the middle of ACC country, and Notre Dame will be the team’s sixth Atlantic Coast adversary this season.
This season, the Flames are 1-4 against the ACC. They opened their year with losses to Virginia and North Carolina, two teams ranked inside the nation’s top 20. Two weeks later, Liberty lost a close one to Duke by three goals at home.
To start March, Liberty picked up a win against Pittsburgh, snatching a 20-17 victory in Lynchburg. The Flames then dropped another three-goal contest to Louisville toward the end of the month.
Last year, Notre Dame and Liberty met on March 19 at Loftus Sports Center, leading to a 19-8 Irish victory at home. The Irish sizzled in a 15-goal first half behind six goals from graduate attacker Madison Ahern, a figure that still stands as her career high. In the Notre Dame cage, Callahan played just three of the game’s four quarters, making four saves before resting in the final 15 minutes.
Though Liberty’s attack was mostly one-dimensional in that game with four goals from Lizzy Ferguson, it certainly hasn’t been throughout 2024. The Flames have four players with at least 20 goals this year, and they rank closely atop the leaderboard. Cami Merkel and Kelly Scott pace the squad with 23 tallies each, while Jordan Sheive tops the team with 37 points.
Liberty also uses a committee-based approach to protect its goal. Three different Liberty goalkeepers have logged at least 185 minutes, with each having recorded more than 10 saves. The best and most utilized goalie of the bunch is Mara Tellers, who owns a .368 save percentage in 12 games and eight starts this season.
Last time out, the Flames fell in a close game against Queens, coming up short by a score of 18-15. Liberty raced out to a 9-3 lead in that game but failed to adjust as the Royals outscored the Flames by the same margin in the second half. The Flames, who struggled mightily in the draw circle against the Irish last year, gave up 22 draw controls to Queens while winning only 15.
Thursday’s game begins at 1 p.m. at Liberty Lacrosse Field in Lynchburg.
