Irish fall to Cavaliers

By NATE MOLLER s enior sports Writer

The no. 11 i rish fell to no. 12 v irginia 16-13 in a highly contested game in c harlottesville, v irginia. With the loss, the i rish fell to 6-3 on the season and 3-2 in conference play.

s enior attacker Jackie Wolak had a career-best six goals in the game. Three of her tallies came in the fourth quarter to give the i rish a chance late in the game. her eight points were also a career best.

The i rish grabbed the lead early s aturday with a goal by junior midfielder mary Kelly d oherty. d oherty’s goal came from a free-position shot just under three minutes into the game. The c avaliers would answer, however, to tie the game at one apiece five minutes into the game.

d oherty and Wolak added two goals at the end of the first quarter to force a 3-3 deadlock after 15 minutes of play. The c avaliers would lead from then on out.

v irginia began to pull away from the i rish early in the second quarter by scoring two goals in the opening minutes to take a 5-3 lead. v irginia took control of the game in the remainder of the half. The c avaliers scored five unanswered goals to take a commanding 11-4 lead. a lthough the i rish scored six goals in the fourth quarter, they were unable to make up the deficit, and the c avaliers held on to win 16-13.

The c avaliers scored again in the second quarter, but Wolak scored her second of the game to bring the lead to 6-4 midway through the quarter.

Junior midfielder Kelly d enes got the i rish back on track in the second half, scoring her seventh goal of the season to cut the c avaliers’ lead to 11-5.

Wolak and junior midfielder Kristen shanahan scored as well for the i rish in the third quarter. The i rish faced a 12-7 deficit heading into the final quarter.

The i rish will return to action this monday at a rlotta stadium when they take on brown at 4 p.m.

Contact Nate Moller at nmoller2@nd.edu

Paid a dverT isemen T

glove back, allowing the ball to travel deep into foul territory and score humphrey from first. moving along to the bottom of the sixth, freshman second baseman estevan moreno quickly restored notre dame’s lead. he yanked hawks’ 76th and final pitch into the left field shrubs for his first Frank eck stadium long ball. With the irish up 4-3, a idan Tyrell did the rest. The graduate student pitched to contact, limiting Louisville to two hits and no walks over his closing 3.1 innings. in the ninth, Prajzner made a sprawling play to get a key force out at second, and the next pitch landed in Zyska’s leftfield glove to end the game.

Game two: Notre Dame 5, Louisville 4 sunday’s doubleheader kicked off at 11 a.m., and christian Knapczyk made sure everyone was wide awake. The Louisville leadoff hitter ambushed the game’s first pitch from sophomore Jack Findlay, belting a home run to right. notre dame nearly answered in the second, but sophomore third baseman Jack Penney flew out with the bases loaded and two outs. on the other side, Louisville tacked on runs in the fourth and fifth to go up 3-0. First, eddie King Jr. drove in ryan mccoy with a single. Then, Logan beard took a Findlay fastball deep to center for a solo shot to open the next inning.

as they did on Friday, the irish turned the game upside down in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Penney atoned for his untimely flyout with his fourth long ball of the year. Then, Prajzner and Zyska reached with walks, forcing Louisville starter Greg Farone out of the game. carter Putz greeted his replacement, Will Koger, with a 412-foot blast to center. The three-run bomb gave notre dame a 4-3 lead, and there was still more damage to come. next up, graduate right fielder brooks coetzee hit a laser to leftcenter that was gone off the bat. With those back-to-back blasts and a five-run inning, Frank eck stadium was electrified.

Findlay finished his 5.1 innings with nine strikeouts, giving way to graduate arm carter bosch. The Georgetown transfer walked the bases loaded with one out in the seventh, putting the tying run at second base. Pinch hitter brandon a nderson stepped in and torched a ball to Putz, who snagged it and tagged the runner off first for a threatending double play. in the eighth, graduate southpaw Will mercer came on and walked in a run, loading the bags with the tying run at third. napczyk, who had already reached base four times, bounced the ball to second, where moreno made a smooth pickup and tossed to Putz for the third out. From there, mercer worked a 1-2-3 ninth, securing the series for notre dame.

Game three: Louisville 2, Notre Dame 1 strong pitching between Louisville’s carson Liggett and irish graduate blake hely set the tone in the weekend’s final game. Through two innings, the starters combined to punch out eight. ninth hitter brandon a nderson led off the third with a slicing liner into shallow left, which Zyska appeared to catch on a slide. however, as the second-base umpire ruled the ball down and Zyska made an appeal, a nderson reached second. he would later score the opening run on a ryan mccoy groundout. notre dame again responded, as a Penney single and Prajzner double opened the fourth, setting up a game-tying Zyska groundout. sophomore radek birkholz relieved hely and pitched well at first, but yielded the go-ahead run on back-to-back sixth-inning hit-by-pitches. his successor, junior matt bedford, walked the bases loaded in the seventh. With that, head coach shawn stiffler called upon junior ryan Lynch, who had recorded just three collegiate outs entering sunday. not only did Lynch escape the jam with consecutive breaking-ball strikeouts, but he gave notre dame 2.1 shutout innings. The irish offense, however, did not reap the benefits of his work. Prajzner singled with one away in the ninth, but Putz made the final out on a rocketed lineout to short. before continuing conference play against north carolina, the irish will host butler in a midweek matchup. The game is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday at Frank eck stadium.

Contact Tyler Reidy at treidy3@nd.edu

going 2-0 in two-touch and four-touch bouts. They each received second-team a lla merican awards. Freshmen m aruan o sman-Touson and Jonathan h amilton- m eikle, who finished eighth and eleventh respectively, each earned honorable mention a ll- a mericans.

Junior Luke Linder finished first in sabre, going 21-2. h e was 5-0 and 2-0 respectively in four-touch and 1-touch bouts. This was his second national title, his first coming from the 2021 c hampionships. Linder’s victory marked the sixth sabre national title for the n otre d ame Fencing Program. h is performance earned him a first-team a lla merica honor bestowed by the U. s . Fencing c oaches a ssociation.

Junior Kaylin s in Yan h sieh finished 5th in individuals going 16-6. The defending epee n ational c hampion went 7-6 in onetouch bouts and undefeated in all other situations. s he earned second-team a lla merican honors for her performance. h owever, another n otre d amer won in epee this year. Freshman e szter m uhari finished 21-3 in competition, going undefeated in two-touch, three-touch, and five-touch bouts. a ll of her losses came on of close onetouch bouts. s enior a mita b erthier tied for third in foil, with a 20-4 finish. s he won all of her one-touch and fivetouch bouts, collecting a lla merican h onors. Graduate student Kara Linder finished fifth in sabre after going 16-7 in match-ups, also given second-team a ll- a merican honors. s ophomore r ebeca c andescu finished ninth for n otre d ame and was given honorable mention a lla merican h onors. a fter scoring highest in the team round with 188 points and being +295 from the individual competition, n otre d ame ended with a total of 1108 points, 29 above the second place Princeton.

This is the 13th national title for the fencing program, a school record for a single program. This is head coach Gia Kvaratskhelia’s fifth title with the team. a dditionally, Kvaratskhelia led the i rish to back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018. They are the first campus team to win back to back to back championships.

Contact Annika Herko at aherko@nd.edu