Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND SPORTS this month. The Irish peaked last year in the win over Boston College and the few games that followed. They struggled to find any scoring during the final month of the season and failed to make the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Irish are off to a more promising start. They won five of their first six games to climb to No. 7 in the national rankings a week before tak- ing on the top-ranked Eagles. So far, a strong supporting cast of players like Rust is carrying them back into the national picture. Notre Dame is scoring 2.83 goals per game (27th in the country), but didn't have a single player among the na- tion's top 50 scorers. That's a change of pace for the Irish who in years past have relied on dynamic playmakers Anders Lee and T.J. Tynan to carry the bulk of the load offensively. Tynan and Lee, both juniors, have finished first and second on the team in scoring each of their first two season in South Bend. They're at the top of the list again this year, but they have plenty of company. Ten different players have scored lack of secondary scoring as one of the biggest downfalls of last year's team, which started the season as the No. 1 team in the country but failed to live up to those lofty expectations. A huge group of sophomores, coming off of a run to the Frozen Four in their rookie season, heaped unreasonable expec- tations on themselves, Jackson said. When the goals didn't come, frustra- tion followed and threw the offense off track. The coach referred to it as a mas- sive sophomore slump. The lack of production from Rust and classmates like Mike Voran and Jeff Costello (all finished with only five goals last year) placed a heavier burden on the team's top scorers, and they too struggled with the added weight. This year that weight has been lifted. "It's huge," said Lee, the team's cap- goals already this season. No one has more than two. Tynan, Lee, Rust and sophomore Peter Schneider are all tied for the team lead with a pair each. That depth, if it continues, makes Notre Dame a nightmare for opposing defenses. "As a team you're a lot more dan- gerous," Rust said. "Usually other teams only have one or two lines that are really scoring lines. If you've got all four lines able to score goals it puts them on their heels a little bit. If we're continuously attacking they don't get as many as chances. We end up wear- ing them down." Head coach Jeff Jackson pointed to a tain. "All four lines are producing, and that just calms every one down and makes things easier. That takes a lot of load off of a lot of guys' shoulders. "We can just relax and go out there and play our game." Jackson said Tynan and Lee still ex- pect to score in every game, but the pressure of being a productive player is much less than being counted on to carry a team to victory most nights. The same goes for junior goalie Steven Summerhays, another member of that 12-man class expected to step into a starring role as an upperclassmen.