(Notre Dame, Ind.) ... The Notre Dame women's lacrosse team put its high-powered offense on display Sunday afternoon at Alumni Field as they ran past the Vanderbilt Commodores, 19-13, in the first round of the NCAA women's lacrosse tournament.

Three Irish players - Kailene Abt (So., Huntington, N.Y.), Jillian Byers (Sr., Northport, N.Y.) and Gina Scioscia (Jr., Summit, N.J.) - had five-point games with Abt and Byers scoring four goals with one assist and Scioscia getting three goals with a pair of assists. Shaylyn Blaney (So., Stony Brook, N.Y.) added four goals of her own in helping the Irish advance to NCAA Quarterfinals. Jackie Doherty (So., Ellicott City, Md.) scored twice while Ansley Stewart (So., Alexandria, Va.) and Maggie Tamasitis (Fr., Boyertown, Pa.) scored one goal each in the win.

Vanderbilt was lead by Carter Foote with five points (1g, 4a) while Ally Carey and Sarah Downing had three goals each. Cara Giordano and Allie Frank scored twice for the Commodores while Katherine Denkler and Laura Keenan had one goal each.

The victory improved the Irish to 16-4 on the year with the 16 wins being a new school record. Vanderbilt's season comes to an end at 10-7. Notre Dame will move on to face North Carolina on Saturday, May 16 at Chapel Hill, N.C. The game time has yet to be determined.

This will mark the third time in the program's history that the Irish have advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. They advanced in 2002, losing at Princeton and then won in 2006, knocking off Georgetown to go to the Final Four in Boston. North Carolina is the third seed in the tournament and is 14-4 on the year. The Tar Heels advanced by defeating Towson, 15-4, on Sunday.

The win also gives the Irish a 4-0 record at home in NCAA Tournament action, something that wasn't lost on head coach Tracy Coyne. "At Notre Dame you have traditions and legacies," said Coyne.

"I think it's nice to continue the tradition of being undefeated at home in the playoffs. I think our 2009 team is establishing its own legacy, as one of our best teams ever, now that they have the most wins in the program's history in one season."

The two teams started the game slowly, trading goals over the first 16:50 of the game on the way to a 4-4 tie at that point. From there, the Irish went on the offensive, scoring nine of the final 12 goals of the first half for a 13-7 halftime lead.

"I was very pleased with the way we played in the first half," said Coyne. "There was a point in the half where we just started to click and we came together as a unit. We have multiple threats on offense and because we've had good balance scoring, it allows you to spread it around and that's what we did late in the first half."

With the score tied 4-4, the Irish ran off four straight goals in a 3:09 span with Scioscia scoring twice and Blaney and Abt getting single goals to make it 8-4. Scioscia would finish the half with three goals and one assist.

"It was important for us to get off to a fast start today," said Scioscia, Notre Dame's second leading scorer this season. The first time we played them (April 15 at Nashville, an 18-11 loss), nothing went right. Our shooting was off. I think it helped turn our season around. We're a team that once we get a lead we can control the tempo and we were able to do that in the first half."

Denkler stopped the Notre Dame run at 6:38, but Blaney answered with her third goal of the half just 27 seconds later at 6:11 to make it 9-5. It looked like the Commodores had stemmed the tide as the teams traded goals with Giordano's goal at 3:04 making it 10-7, but that was a close as Vanderbilt would get.

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2009-05-11