As a chilly breeze from the north marked the calendar’s turning from September to October, Notre Dame men’s soccer produced more of the same Tuesday night at Alumni Stadium. The Irish extended their win streak to four matches, improving to 5-1-3 on the season with a 7-1 thrashing of Division III program Trine. Notre Dame scored in bunches, tallying seven goals or more for the first time since Sept. 27, 2022 against Kalamazoo.
“I think we were a little sluggish to start,” Notre Dame head coach Chad Riley said. “Credit to Trine — they came out and hit a couple of direct balls that woke us up. I think they pressed pretty well … Overall, I thought Trine started well, and it took us a little bit [but we] responded pretty well.”
Despite Trine’s early pressure, Notre Dame put forth the night’s first goal in the seventh minute. Sophomore midfielder Nolan Spicer drew contact inside the 18-yard box, winning a penalty kick for the Irish. None other than Matthew Roou, the reigning ACC Offensive Player of the Week, stepped up to take the shot. With a crisp finish inside the right post, the senior forward notched his ninth goal of the season, scored for the fourth consecutive match and reached the 30-goal plateau for his career.
Six minutes later, Notre Dame struck again. Sophomore forward Jack Flanagan unleashed a cross from the right side that swerved into the arms of Trine goalkeeper Dillon Lambert. However, as he reached down to corral the ball, Lambert fumbled it back to the top of the 6-yard box. The rebound deflected off a Trine defender and trickled out to freshman midfielder Ian Shaul, who cut a perfectly placed shot through traffic and into the lower left corner. Shaul’s first career goal had the Irish up a pair of goals early on.
The 18th minute saw another member of the Notre Dame midfield score for the first time in 2024. Turning with a threaded pass from senior midfielder Bryce Boneau, junior KK Baffour navigated between Thunder defenders to open up a shooting lane from 15 yards out. As Lambert approached to challenge, Baffour angled a shot around him to the right, extending Notre Dame’s lead to 3-0.
“I think he's been really unlucky — he's had some blocks, some good keeper saves, some narrow misses,” Riley said of Baffour. “Like Roou, he's always in and around there, and it's nice for him to get that breakthrough.”
On the other side of the pitch, graduate goalkeeper Collin Travasos made the start and played his first minutes in an Irish uniform. The sixth-year transfer from North Carolina made one save but faced a beauty of a shot that put Trine on the board in the 20th minute. Firing from 20 yards out, Braden Estep picked out the upper right corner for Trine’s first goal in four all-time matches against Notre Dame.
With the score having held at 3-1 midway through, the Irish returned with another flurry of early-half goals just after halftime. The 60th minute opened with a brilliant connection between Boneau and Spicer, who passed between one another three times atop the 18-yard box before Spicer marched in and registered his second goal of the season.
On Notre Dame’s fourth goal, Boneau collected his second assist of the night and matched his career high with seven helpers on the season.
“He's one that just finds the right times to join the attack,” Riley said of Boneau. “The interchange between him and Nolan was fantastic, and then just a good calm finish by Nolan.”
Only 80 seconds later, another Irish star equaled his own career high, as Roou broke free down the middle via Baffour’s setup. With an easy poke of the ball beyond Lambert’s reach, the Notre Dame talisman tallied his 10th goal of the season to parallel his 2023 total. Roou’s 31st career goal also moved him into a tie with Jack Lynn for 13th place on the all-time Notre Dame leaderboard.
“Hitting the back of the net is hard to do,” Riley said. “[Roou’s] locked in, and he's finding the net now, so we want to keep him doing that.”
After an own goal pushed Notre Dame’s lead to 6-1 in the 63rd minute, sophomore midfielder Nico Bartlett opened his collegiate account. Running onto a wonderfully directed flick from sophomore forward Nate Zimmerman, Bartlett chipped the ball over replacement keeper Aidan McGonagle for Notre Dame’s seventh goal of the night. The match would go final with the score still 7-1 in favor of the Irish.
As Notre Dame exited the pitch on Tuesday, it also wrapped up a six-game homestand. The stretch started with adversity, as the Irish played to a draw against Duquesne and lost a winnable contest to Stanford. However, Notre Dame responded with four straight wins, including Friday’s 2-1 takedown of No. 12 Clemson.
After Tuesday’s victory, Riley assessed how the long stretch of games at Alumni Stadium went for his team.
“Pretty well,” he said. “I think the performances continued to get better … I give the guys a lot of credit that they stayed the course, focused on the process, and they saw the fruits of their work in the results.”
Up next, Notre Dame will dip back into ACC play and visit 2022 national champion Syracuse. The match is set for 7 p.m. on Saturday.
