SOUTH BEND, IN - The No. 19 Fighting Irish clipped the Rockets in the final minutes of Sunday afternoons match in South Bend, IN. Notre Dame's Morgan Andrews tallied her second goal of the day with a penalty kick in the 88th minute to topple Toledo, 2-1. UT is now 3-3-1 on the season and turns their attention to a match at Dayton on Sunday, Sept. 21 with kickoff slated for 1:00 p.m.
“What a great effort today by the entire group,” UT head coach Brad Evans said. “I was extremely proud of the discipline we showed through the game, sticking with the game plan and making the key adjustment after going down 0-1 to pull one back. I was disappointed to come out with a loss but we progressed as a team from last week. This is a great team to work with and I'm excited about the future of this team"
The Rockets survived a barrage of shots in the first half as junior goalkeeper Sam Tiongson continued her solid play between the posts. The Carmel, IN native corralled 10 saves today, five in each half, as ND held a 24-4 shot advantage.
"I'm proud of our team for staying in the game mentally after being down a goal and tying it back up,” Tiongson said. “I'm looking forward to what we can do for the next game and the rest of the season with the growth we've shown so far."
Trailing 1-0 in the 76th minute, The Rockets broke through to tie the game off the foot of sophomore Kiersten Johnson. Junior midfielder Geri Siudzinski chipped a long pass through the Irish defense and found Johnson, who rattled the shot off the left post and into the net from 22-yards out.
"It's unfortunate that we lost but it's a loss that is bitter sweet,” Johnson said. “I couldn't be more proud and happy with the way we played and were grinding throughout the entire match. I felt like we left it all on the field.”
The Rockets nearly took the lead just 10 minutes later as freshman Sydney Vinton found space and fired a shot toward the corner of the goal. ND goalkeeper Kaela Little was able to punch the shot over the top of the bar at the last second to keep the score knotted at 1-1.
The Irish capitalized a few minutes later as UT was called for a penalty in the box. Andrews stepped up and blasted a shot past Tiongson to give Notre Dame the one-goal victory.
“It's unfortunate that we lost but we showed that we improved from Michigan and this week of practice,” Johnson said. “We worked on connecting through the midfield to the forwards and that's how we scored our goal. It was a team battle, we can build from this and I believe we have a lot of potential for the rest of the season."
NOTRE DAME 2 TOLEDO 1
ND: M. Andrews (Olmsted), 52:30
UT: K. Johnson (Siudzinski), 75:40
ND: M. Andrews (Penalty Kick), 87:37
SHOTS: UT – 4 ND – 24
CORNER KICKS: UT – 1 ND – 8
SAVES: UT – 10 ND - 3
