An hour before Notre Dame kicked off its 3-1 Tuesday night defeat of Detroit Mercy, all the typical proceedings of a men’s soccer evening at Alumni Stadium came to a screeching halt. As the players opened their warmups in a steady rain present since mid-afternoon, the sirens sounded for a tornado warning just outside South Bend. With the match in a 30-minute delay and the stadium cleared out, both teams holed up and awaited the field conditions they would find on the other side.
“When we first came out for warm-ups, it was terrible, so we were a little worried about it,” Notre Dame senior forward Matthew Roou recalled. “But our grounds crew is always unreal at clearing it, so it got pretty manageable once the game started, but it's always an adjustment dealing with the extra 30 minutes. [The] adrenaline's going, [and] you're just waiting in there. So [it’s] just a mental game … you’ve got to be ready for whatever the conditions are.”
Though the night began in a less-than-ordinary fashion, Roou restored order in a hurry. Following up his Friday hat trick against Chicago State, the Irish talisman struck twice in the game’s first 12 minutes.
His opening goal paid off the setup of senior forward Bryce Boneau, who threaded the needle on a poked pass through the Detroit Mercy back line. Roou received the ball, turned and advanced unimpeded to the penalty spot, where he ripped a shot that zipped inside the left post.
Only 187 seconds later, Notre Dame’s top scorer delivered again.
Senior defender Kyle Genenbacher jumped a wayward Detroit Mercy pass, turning over the Titans and finding sophomore forward Jack Flanagan at the right edge of the 18-yard box. Flanagan swerved into a cross, which picked out the sliding left foot of Roou atop the 6-yard area. Despite Detroit Mercy goalkeeper Viktor Sulc’s best effort to lunge on the ball, it slipped underneath his reach for Roou’s second goal.
After opening the season with only one goal in his first five matches, Roou had suddenly scored five in less than 90 minutes of play.
“Obviously the finishing which he's had, he's always had,” Notre Dame head coach Chad Riley said of Roou. “But I think it's just now the games under his belt, the film sessions, the training and now he's just got his game sharpness, and his movement’s so good in the box.”
Notre Dame nearly found a third goal as the first half wound down, but a brilliant Sulc denial of sophomore midfielder Nolan Spicer left the home side up 2-0 at halftime.
That missed opportunity loomed large right away in the second half. With Notre Dame slow to get going out of the break, Detroit Mercy capitalized with a quick-developing buildup down the right side. The play finished with a right-to-left Josh Copeland cross that top Titan scorer Guershom Sylvain ran onto and elevated into the top netting.
Now within a goal, Detroit Mercy kept on the attack, possessing the ball for longer than it had all night and pinning the Irish in their own end. Nevertheless, Notre Dame avoided any more truly dangerous opportunities and retained its one-goal advantage throughout the second half.
“I think one of the lessons is once you turn off the intensity switch, it's hard to get back on. Credit to the guys — they did,” Riley said. “But it kind of rattles you when you think that things are just going to come easy. We know Detroit [Mercy] is a good team. They've got good players, and so it wasn't surprising that they could score on us. Credit to the seniors on the team. They kept us calm.”
At about midway through the second half, momentum flipped firmly back in Notre Dame’s favor. The Irish generated a number of set-piece chances and finally cashed in when Roou won a reviewed penalty kick in the 88th minute. With the rare shot at back-to-back hat tricks on the line, Roou stepped up to the spot and made no mistakes, tucking a shot comfortably inside the right post.
“[Detroit Mercy] came out flying — credit to them. They were unbelievable in the second half and gave us a game,” Roou said. “They had some chances to tie it up, and we were hanging on, so I think the third goal just helped take the weight off everyone’s shoulders for the last couple of minutes, which was great.”
As the match went final at 3-1, Roou walked off the pitch as Notre Dame’s first player with two hat tricks in a season since the 1979 team’s Kevin Lovejoy. He’ll have a long way to go to catch Lovejoy’s career Notre Dame goal record of 67, but Roou’s 28 now puts him inside the Irish goal leaderboard’s top 20.
“We've really been clicking as a team offensively, and the service the last two games has been unbelievable from the wide areas. … Our midfielders, too, [are] playing great balls, so it's just helping all of us,” Roou said. “We got a lot of chances this game — could have been a lot more goals — but I was lucky enough to get three of them.”
Up next for the Irish is the long-awaited rematch of last season’s College Cup final. Notre Dame will host No. 12 Clemson on Friday at 7 p.m., with eyes on its most impactful win of the season so far.
