No. 7 Notre Dame (7-1) opened league play this weekend with a dominant win over Bellarmine University.
The Irish scored 15 goals in the first half en route to a 19-7 victory over the Knights.
"We shot the ball very well. I thought we played very well offensively," coach Kevin Corrigan said. "We created lots of opportunities for ourselves and defensively we were good enough to get the win."
Three Irish midfielders posted career-highs in goals. Senior Michael Podgajny led the offense with four goals while sophomore Grant Krebs scored three times and junior Peter Christmas twice.
Senior goalkeeper Joey Kemp recorded 10 saves for his 33rd career victory. He now holds the Irish record for wins. Junior attack Ryan Hoff scored his team-best 19th goal of the season.
Bellarmine sophomore attack Andrew Wolford scored the first goal of the game, putting the Knights on the board first with 12:46 remaining in the first quarter.
"We played a little bit erratically at the beginning, but we settled down about 10 minutes into the game and played very well for the rest of the first half," Corrigan said.
The Irish quickly retaliated with back-to-back goals from sophomore attack Neil Hicks and Krebs. Podgajny and Krebs each scored again by the end of the first, giving the Irish a 4-2 lead entering the second quarter.
The Irish dominated the second stanza. Podgajny first scored two goals followed by a goal from senior attack Alex Wharton. The Knights then scored to make it 7-3, but the Irish when on an 8-0 run to take a commanding 15-3 lead.
Senior midfielder and face-off specialist Taylor Clagett started the run, scoring his second goal of the season. Christman scored next, followed with a goal by freshman midfielder Zach Brenneman.
Christman, sophomore attack Matt Ciambella, freshman defenseman Andrew Irving and Hoff completed the final four goals of the first-half run.
During the third quarter, Bellarmine scored twice before junior attack Ducan Swezey scored giving the Irish a 16-5 lead. Podgajny scored again early in the fourth quarter to give the Irish a 17-5 lead. Bellarmine scored twice more before two Irish freshmen, Tom Connor and Patrick Maloney, earned the last goals, making the final scored 19-7 in favor of the Irish.
The Irish will continue league play against Denver next Saturday at 3 p.m. at Toyota Park in Bridgeville, Ill.
"Denver is very good team and they are playing well," Corrigan said. "They have recently gotten a couple of big wins after struggling very early on. They are very good team offensively."
