For a moment, it looked like No. 7 Notre Dame might not break the 0-0 stalemate in Monday's exhibition game against Ohio State at Alumni Stadium.
The Irish had shot unsuccessfully on goal 20 times when freshman midfielder Brandon Aubrey's attempt careened off the cross bar in the 66th minute.
Finally, senior forward Leon Brown corralled the ball and passed it to senior forward Alex Priede, who slid into the goal alongside the ball to scorg the only goal of the game.
"I thought Leon did a really good job just feeding it, and it came to Alex," Irish coach Bobby Clark said. "Alex ia good around the box. [He] is a goal-scorer, that's what he lives on."
The game-winning goal came just minutes after much of the starting lineup left the game to give the second unit some playing time.
"We put the starters in for 60 minutes," Clark said. "Up to that point in the game, we'd had a lot of chances; we should have put some away."
Although the Irish secured the narrow, one-goal victory, they dominated possession and shots attempten, taking 25 shots while the Buckeyes mustered just six. Ohio State's junior goalkeeper Alex Ivanov put on a show in the first half, making seven saves and shutting out the Irish before junior Andrian McAdams replaced him at halftime.
With the win, the Irish finished the exhibition season with a record of 2-0. They lost to Creighton, 1-0, on Aug. 18, and three days later beat Drake, 2-1. The Irish open the regular season with a match-up against No. 9 UCLA at the Adidas/IU Credit Union Classic at Indiana University on Friday.
"There's always a lot of stuff we can clean up," Clark said. It will take more than a week, possibly, but we're getting there."You take a team and you outshoot them 25 to 6, and you've played with your B-squad for a third of the game, you've got to say you're [in good shape]. But in all fairness, it's going to be a whole other level on Friday. We know that."
Clark said he was particularly impressed with the effort from junior midfielder Robby Gallegos, who played in the first half, and sophomore midfielder Connor Klekota, who replaced Gallegos for the last 45 minutes.
"They were sort of filling the role that [former Irish midfielder] Dillon Powers filled last year, and both did very well," Clark said. "Obviously, Connor had a harder job because he had more younger players around him, but they both did very well."
The exhibition loss was the second of the year for Ohio State. The Buckeyes also fell to West Virginia, 1-0, although they did secure a 2-0 victory over IPFW on Aug. 20. Ohio State is hoping to improve on last year's 6-10-3 record, when the Buckeyes failed to notch a single conference win.
The Irish square off against UCLA at Indiana's Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington, Ind., on Friday at 5 p.m
Contact Vicky Jacobsen at vjacobse@nd.edu
