NOTRE DAME, Ind. - A Caitlin McKinney (Lafayette Hill, Pa./Germantown Academy) goal with seven seconds left in overtime gave the No. 5 Notre Dame women's lacrosse team a 12-11 win over No. 18 Stanford on Saturday afternoon in the Loftus Sports Center. McKinney, a junior, led the Irish with six goals and one assist and her sophomore teammate Jillian Byers (Northport, N.Y./Northport) chipped in three tallies as the Irish improve to 2-0 on the season. The loss drops the Cardinal to 1-3.

With the Irish trailing 11-9 with just under eight minutes remaining in regulation, McKinney notched her fifth goal of the day off a free position shot to cut the deficit in half. Senior Lena Zentgraf (Charlottesville, Va./Charlottesville) then scored, off an assist from McKinney, with 4:02 left in the half to knot the game and send it to overtime.

There was no scoring in the first three-minute overtime period. The game appeared headed to a sudden-victory overtime session before McKinney deposited an unassisted goal to give Notre Dame the victory.

A back-and-forth first half featured eight goals for both teams. McKinney and senior Kaki Orr (Darien, Conn./Choate Rosemary Hall) put the Irish up 2-0 early. The Irish would enjoy two-goal leads on three different occasions in the first half. A Byers goal with 22:24 remaining would put Notre Dame on top 3-1 and a Heather Ferguson (Newtown Square, Pa./Archbishop Carroll) score off a free position shot with 18:23 left gave the Irish a 5-3 advantage.

The Cardinal responded with three straight goals to take a 6-5 lead with just over six minutes to go in the half. Notre Dame used three goals from McKinney to recapture the lead at 8-7 before a Stanford tally with 20 seconds left in the half made it an 8-8 contest going into the intermission.

Stanford struck first in the second half as Megan Mclain netted her second goal of the afternoon. Byers knotted the game once again before the Cardinal ran off two straight scores to take an 11-9 advantage.

Notre Dame goaltender Erin Goodman (Cortlandt Manor, N.Y./Lakeland Panas) picked up the win as she collected six saves. Her counterpart Laura Shane made 17 saves for Stanford. The Irish out-shot the Cardinal 40-23. Daphne Patterson led Stanford with three goals.

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The Stanford women's lacrosse team dropped a 12-11 overtime decision to Notre Dame in Indiana on Saturday, marking the second consecutive year that the Irish have topped the Cardinal by a score of 12-11 in double overtime. Notre Dame came back from a two-goal deficit in the second half to send the game into extra time, with junior attacker Caitlin McKinney putting away the game winner with just seven seconds remaining in the second overtime period.

The Irish started off the scoring in the first half with McKinney and senior midfielder Kaki Orr notching goals just 46 seconds apart. From there, the two teams traded goals, each scoring eight before the break. Junior attacker Daphne Patterson recorded three scores for the Cardinal in the half, while sophomore midfielder Bess Siegfried posted three assists before heading to the locker rooms.

After 16 total goals in the first half, the two teams combined for just six in the second. The Cardinal were the first to find the back of the net after the break when junior attacker Megan McClain scored an unassisted goal to put Stanford up 9-8 with 21:53 remaining in regulation.

The Irish tied the score at nine on a score by sophomore midfielder Jillian Byers before the Cardinal scored back-to-back goals to take an 11-9 lead with 7:38 left. McKinney answered just 28 seconds later, cutting the Stanford lead to one. With 4:02 remaining, Notre Dame senior midfielder Lena Zentgraf put in the last goal of regulation, which knotted the score at 11.

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2007-02-24