men fall to Illinois

By PETER BREEN sports Writer

While notre dame men’s tennis traveled to champaign, Illinois on saturday to take on the university of Illinois urbanachampaign Fighting Illini, notre dame women’s tennis hosted the northwestern university Wildcats in south bend.

At the eck Tennis Pavilion, the notre dame women cruised past northwestern 6-1. conversely, at the Atkins Tennis center, the notre dame men were swept 7-0 by Illinois.

In women’s doubles, Irish senior Page Freeman and sophomore maria olivia castedo defeated the top Wildcat pair 6-2. After junior Julia Andreach and sophomore carrie beckman fell in a 6-1 match, junior Yashna Yellayi and freshman rylie hanford

Hokies

than him.” brey opted for the dual-forward lineup for the second consecutive contest, starting Laszewski and freshman venAllen Lubin. Freshman phenom JJ starling came off the bench once again after registering just two points in Wednesday’s heartbreaking loss to Georgia Tech while dealing with an illness. starling showed flashes of brilliance saturday, converting several layups in the second half which ignited the home crowd, but he finished with just nine points on 4-10 shooting.

Laszewski showcased his prowess as a multilevel scorer throughout the contest. he knocked down six of his nine attempts from beyond the arc, and consistently found mismatches down low against smaller defenders. he broke his career high — which was set just three weeks earlier against boston college — by grabbing an offensive rebound and converting the second-chance opportunity early in the second half.

“our mood has been pretty consistent because we’ve taken a lot of punches,” brey said of the locker room after the game.

As has been the case all season, it was notre dame’s defense that was the culprit. The Irish, who allow the most points of any team in the Acc , turned in yet another miserable performance on that end of the floor as the hokies shot better than 57% from the field and went to the line 25 times in the 93-87 victory.

“can they score or what?” brey said of the hokies offense. “ They’re just so old and they have a tempo, and quite frankly, I hope they miss a few.” v irginia Tech forward Grant basile, who came in averaging 15.6 points per game, picked up two early fouls and played just five minutes in the first half. Yet he was nearly unguardable in the final 20 minutes. he scored 28 second half points on 11-15, shooting on his way to a 33-point performance to match Laszewski. equally difficult for the Irish to defend was hokies forward Justyn mutts, who nearly had a triple-double, racking up 19 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists.

Prior to the season, brey was heavily recruiting the transfer portal in hopes of finding a replacement for big man Paul Atkinson Jr., who shined for the Irish last year as a graduate transfer from Yale. basile, who starred for four years at Wright state before committing to v irginia Tech this offseason, was one of brey’s top targets. The Irish even hosted him for an official visit in April.

“You see why I tried to get basile, I did a great job on that recruiting” brey said after the game.

“mutts is such a facilitator,” brey said. “he’s a point-forward who is just really hard to deal with.”

The road doesn’t get any easier for the Irish. They travel to durham, north carolina, on Tuesday night to take on duke, before heading to c harlottesville, north carolina, next weekend for a matchup with no. 8 v irginia. Preseason no. 1 north carolina comes to south bend the following week.

Contact Liam Coolican at lcoolica@nd.edu

Hockey

con TI nued F rom PAGe 12 who had not fully rotated over. ultimately, notre dame held on to win the game 2-1, taking the first game of the two-game series. saturday’s contest was quite possibly the most emotional game of the season for the notre dame Fighting Irish hockey team. The Irish battled from two goals for a 2-2 tie. notre dame prevailed after an epic nine rounds in the ensuing shootout to earn the extra b10 standings point, moving them into a three-way tie for third place in the big Ten.

Playing their last regular season game before a sold-out crowd at cFIA, the notre dame graduate students and seniors made the difference.

“It was senior night, and it matters to these kids,” Irish head coach Jeff Jackson said postgame. “I told them before the game, I don’t want to watch them down there singing the alma mater after a loss.”

The importance of the game for the notre dame senior class was visible following the national anthem, when solag bakich led the team in the pre-game huddle. The four-year senior has deep roots with the Irish — his parents both attended the university.

It was graduate student ben brinkman who got notre dame physically engaged in the contest, leveling some heavy checks early in the game. There was little flow to the opening frame, as the teams combined for 36 penalty minutes. each team had three power-plays, and ohio state struck for first on their third when mason Lohrei finished off a crosscrease feed from michael Gildon at 13:49. That did not stop the sloppiness, as notre dame’s graduate student forward chayse Primeau and ohio state’s Treloar were both secured the doubles point for the Irish with a 6-3 victory. head coach Alison silverio, who is in her fifth season at the helm of notre dame women’s tennis, said she has been cultivating a certain mindset amongst her squad all season. silverio reiterated the team’s stoic attitude — controlling the controllable and not worrying about the rest. whistled for 10-minute misconducts late in the frame.

In singles, notre dame, led by Freeman’s and Andreach’s straight-set wins, went on to prevail in five of six matches to finish out the afternoon. The weekend triumph lifts the Irish to 5-0 on the year at home and 7-1 overall, the program’s best start to a season in six years.

“our mentality and what we’ve been focusing on this entire season has been: relentless competitors,” silverio said.

“The first period was so chaotic,” captain Leivermann said after the game. “Frankly, they were just trying to get under our skin, and it worked a little bit, because they were playing really well.” notre dame was in need of some refocusing in the locker room. This time, it was senior Janicke who did the talking.

“We did it actually twice, the first time it was Trevor,” Leivermann said. The message? “Just dial back in, everyone take a breath.” despite this, the Irish fell behind 2-0 early in the second period. dalton messina leaked a wrist shot through bischel from the far faceoff circle, causing the ohio state bench to erupt. It was the senior forward’s first career goal for the buckeyes.

The goal came as a result of extended pressure by ohio state in the notre dame zone to start the period. ohio state continued to string together shifts of offensive zone possession, forcing notre dame to kill off a penalty.

Then notre dame called their timeout — a savvy veteran move by Jackson. sure enough, graduate student forward Jack Adams parked in front of the goal and deflected junior defenseman Jake boltmann’s shot past buckeye netminder dobes to get the Irish on the board less 29 seconds later. compton roared as Adams skated toward the bench pumping up the crowd, left arm raised triumphantly.

Less than four minutes following, notre dame tied the score on Leivermann’s power-play goal. In a major penalty-killing error by the buckeyes, Leivermann was left entirely alone in the right faceoff circle while the puck was on the left half-wall. slaggert

“We are focused on all the areas that we have control over and doing those to the best of our abilities from preparation to competing to studying,” silverio said.

Ahead of saturday’s meeting, silverio admitted wariness about the Wildcats’ capabilities in doubles play. Fortunately, doubles has been the Irish’s strong suit this season as well.

“For [northwestern] a strength has always been their doubles,” silverio said. “We know coming out of the gates [on saturday], we have to be ready … but doubles has also been a strength of ours this season.” made a precise saucer pass right into Leivermann’s wheelhouse, and the captain rifled home the equalizer. despite being outshot 18-8 in the second period, the Irish had managed to tie the game. The third period was more of the same. The buckeyes threw 20 more shots on net in the third, many of which came from highquality scoring areas. Yet bischel was up to the task on all of them, plus five more in overtime. “We were hanging on for dear life tonight,” Jackson said. “our goalie played great.”

Though silverio does stress the mental aspect of the game, she prioritizes taking care of the fundamentals when it comes to the physical side of things.

When the final siren sounded on overtime, the scoreboard read a hard-fought 2-2 tie. It also read 52 ohio state shots. It was bischel’s sixth 40-plus save and second 50-plus save performance this season.

There was still more to come in the shootout, which did not lack for drama in its own right. After Leivermann scored on the very first shot for notre dame, Jake Wise scored to keep his team alive in the third round.

The stalemate continued into round nine, when graduate student chase blackmun niftily snuck a shot by the glove of dobes to put the Irish out in front. Thiesing needed to score to keep the buckeye hopes alive. slowing as he drifted to the slot, he released a snapshot at bischel.

As he had 45 times in regulation, five times in overtime and six times in the shootout, bischel made the save to cap a thrilling weekend and give the Irish a ton of momentum heading into their final series of the regular season next weekend at no. 5 m ichigan.