nd rugby battles in Invitational

By RYAN MURPHY sports Writer

battling rain, snow and wind gusts well over 20 miles per hour, the notre dame men’s rugby program hosted its annual Fighting Irish 7s Invitational tournament on saturday. The team posted a 2-2 record against the field of 12 in the qualifier division, with wins over the University of Illinois and marian University.

It was two close, two-point losses that dogged notre dame’s championship hopes. After falling in their final game of pool play to Adrian college 14-12, the Irish bowed out of contention for the tournament title with a

By NATE MOLLER senior sports Writer

The n otre d ame track and field team was back in action this weekend, competing at two different meets. The heptathlon athletes competed in the Texas r elays at the University of Texas at Austin, while the throwers and distance runners competed at the Pacesetter s ports Invitational at Indiana s tate University in Terre h aute.

The reigning indoor heptathlon national champion, sophomore Jadin o ’ b rien, took first in Texas, setting a new personal best of 5,942 points. h er finish this weekend places her first in the country in heptathlon for the outdoor track season.

s ophomore Alaina b rady also competed in the heptathlon, finishing in sixth place with a new personal record of 5,650 points.

h ead coach m att s parks was excited that o ’ b rien got another win, but he was also very encouraged by b rady’s performance.

“The added events I think give [ b rady] a little bit of a boost over some of the other national-level people,” s parks said.

s parks thinks b rady is in a great position to make the national meet by the end of the season.

“It’s probably 50-50 if that mark gets her into the national meet. s he will obviously have the conference meet and maybe a regular season meet to improve,” s parks said. “That’s a really good start for her to put her on a national platform, which is something she’s been working towards the last couple of years. s he’s been on the outside looking in, but she’s much closer to getting into the national meet.”

In Terre h aute, junior m ichael s hoaf won the shot put event with a mark of 19.01m, which will secure his spot in the regional meet.

“ s hoaf stepped up and won the shot put event.” s parks said. “ h e’s firmly in the regional meet, so the rest of the regular season is setting himself up for the regional and conference meet.” s hoaf went to the national outdoor meet last year and competed at the national indoor meet this year. s parks hopes he can take the next step at this year’s national meet.

“The next step for [ s hoaf] is to not just make the national meet, but to get to the national meet and find a way to score,” s parks said.

“We are trying to get him to compete at a more elite level once he makes the national meet and not be satisfied and content that he made it there. I think he has gotten to that point now. n ow he needs to go there and make an impact on the competition.” s parks discussed how o ’ b rien and s hoaf have acted as leaders for the women’s and men’s teams, respectively.

“When you continually win and find ways to get the job done, the rest of the team sees that and recognizes that. With Jadin [ o ’ b rien], I think that’s recognized across the board, especially with our women’s team,” s parks said. “And we need m ichael [ s hoaf] to continue to step up and find ways to win. h e’s doing that more and more often week after week here.” s parks also described sophomore distance runner c arter s olomon as a leader for the team.

“ c arter s olomon is another guy who can usually find ways to win,” s parks said. “Whether that’s the conference meet or a smaller meet, he finds ways to get better every time out and that’s contagious.”

Graduate student John Keenan also won the javelin throw in Terre h aute with a mark of 60.48m. s parks hopes Keenan can push for a qualification in the national meet this year.

“ h e competed for us for four years and came back for grad school,” s parks said of Keenan. “ h e’s been an all-conference javelin thrower for us a couple of years ago, and we are hoping to find that magic again and make an impact at the regional meet and make a run at a national qualifier in that event.” o n the track, sophomores Paige and m olly Grant went one-two in the 1500m run with times of 4:32.53 and 4:33.26, respectively. Junior c atherine c offey also won the 800m run with a time of 2:15.89. s parks hopes those three athletes gain confidence from their victories, especially with stiffer competition coming down the road.

“For each of them, it was a big step in the right direction for them. It’s always nice to get a win,” s parks said. “For a lot of the group that competed here, they got some confidence from winning or finishing in the top half of their event. We will get into some tougher competitions here at the end of April, which will hopefully push them towards some personal bests as we approach the conference meet.”

The Irish will be in action next weekend at the Jack s haw Invite at Western m ichigan University in Kalamazoo, m ichigan, with the sprinters and jumpers competing.

Contact Nate Moller at nmoller2@nd.edu

7-5 loss to Aquinas college in the quarterfinals.

“our perspective is, like, this is our learning ground. our goal is the end of April and the national championship tournament,” Irish head coach Justin hickey said following his team’s quarterfinal loss. “hopefully, we stumble and learn from these things now so that, come the end of April, we’re back in shape.”

The toughest challenge for the whole squad saturday, other than the fierce competition, was the natural elements. A classic calamity of late-spring weather conditions kept the matches tight and see rUGbY PAge 10

Baseball

con TI n U ed F rom PAGe 10 blowing out to left, the ball carried 448 feet and gave notre dame a 2-0 lead.

The damage continued into the third. sophomore third baseman Jack Penney worked a hitter’s count and launched a skyscraping homer for a three-run lead. Then, with two outs, graduate right fielder brooks coetzee singled home Putz. That brought up martinez, who capped off an incredible weekend at the plate with his third long ball of the series. The two-run laser put the Irish up six and sent Unc starter Jake Knapp to the showers.

After graduate student southpaw Aidan Tyrell stranded two heels with a strikeout, the Irish offense added on in the fifth. With the bases juiced, sophomore outfielder dm Jefferson plated a pair with a slicing double. moreno followed with an rbI single, handing the Irish a 9-0 lead. Though Tyrell surrendered a home run to vance honeycutt in the eighth, he finished off the game with 4.1 innings of effective relief. notre dame will have another one-game non-conference excursion this week. on Tuesday, northwestern will visit Frank eck stadium for a 5:30 p.m. first pitch.

Contact Tyler Reidy at treidy@nd.edu

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ND BAseBALL