Breakout season ended by Irish

Spartans play No. 1 Notre Dame tough, but can't find net in 1-0 loss

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South Bend, Ind. — Blistering cold winds whipped through Notre Dame’s Alumni Field as the MSU women’s soccer team waited for someone to start heating up. But the only source of warmth that smashed through the ice cold tundra was Notre Dame’s Rose Augustin, who scored the contest’s game winning — and only — goal of the afternoon en route to a 1-0 victory Sunday, knocking the Spartans out of the NCAA Tournament in the second round.

“We knew we had to take a defensive game plan,” MSU head coach Tom Saxton said.

“We strategized for that (Saturday) and Notre Dame is an incredibly talented team. They’ll make a great run at the national title and we knew we’d have to absorb what they brought at us, defend and play the game five minutes at a time. We never got any really good counter opportunities, but that’s a credit to (their) defenders.”

The Fighting Irish, the No. 1 team in the country since Sept. 19, (23-0-0 overall) dominated offensively, outshooting the Spartans (14-7-3) 29-3 and attempting four corner kicks to MSU’s zero. Freshman goalkeeper Jill Flietstra stopped seven of the eight shots on net.

One specific save, perhaps not only the biggest of the season but the best of Flietstra’s young career, came with just 26 minutes to play when an Irish forward screamed down the field with the ball without a Spartans defender in sight.

The home crowd roared until Flietstra crept out to the 18-yard line and made a sliding kick save to preserve the 0-0 tie, calming the rambunctious crowd in an instant.

And although the statistics appear one-sided on paper, junior forward Lauren Hill said the pace of the game was affected by the amount of stoppages in play, especially as MSU pursued its opponent’s goal.

“I think that they were a little soft, I’m not going to lie,” Hill said.

“We used that to our advantage. Soccer is a competitive game and I think they could have given us a little bit harder fight. They had some cheap fouls.”

Both squads combined for 31 fouls, MSU posting just one more than Notre Dame, 16 and 15 respectively.

Regardless, Augustin found a way to play past it all, slipping through the Green and White defense, receiving a pass from teammate Kerri Hanks and skipping the ball off her left foot into the lower right corner of the net with just 17:57 to play.

For the remainder of the contest, the Spartans would attempt just one more shot on Notre Dame’s Kelsey Lysander, which she scooped up with ease from a last-ditch effort by freshman forward Laura Heyboer.

In the past eight games, MSU went 1-4-3, extending its all-time tournament record to 2-3. The Fighting Irish, however, are now 38-3-0 at home in NCAA Tournament games and stay alive to play out their 16th consecutive tournament life against the winner of South Dakota State vs. Minnesota.

“I think the Big Ten prepares you well for games like this,” senior defender Kelley Amormino said.

“In the Big Ten, there’s one or two (forwards) that are really good, but here it’s all three of them. I thought we did a great job with them and it was cool to play against some of the top players in the country.”

And although Saxton said his team played too well all season to call this a “moral victory,” he knows the Spartans will be happy with the strides they made not only for themselves, but as a program in general.

Hill couldn’t have agreed more — putting the Irish on her “To Beat” list as soon as the clock struck 0:00.

“I can’t wait ‘til next year and I can’t wait to beat Notre Dame next year too,” she said.

“From day one, we just took one game at a time and this is just the dream we’ve always been waiting for. We’re just going to get further in our dream next year.”

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