Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND Sports lazy tag that sometimes landed on his sweater. Enter Flattop. The 3,510-foot peak a few miles southeast of Anchorage, Alaska, Summerhays��� hometown, is about a 45-minute hike from the trailhead. That���s where Notre Dame���s top goalie earned it. More specifically, he got the mental and physical edge he needed at the stairs ��� a particularly vertical stretch halfway up the mountain terraced by large wooden planks wedged into gravel and earth. It was there, in late May, that Summerhays realized what he was up against. It was his first time scaling the mountain and he was running out of excuses for why he kept falling behind his older brother, Jeff, and Tyler Currier, a training partner and senior forward for the Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves. ���It was just miserable,��� he said. ���I remember getting halfway through the stairs and they were cruising. I was like, ���Uhh, I���m going to tie my shoe.��� I remember sitting there for about 20 minutes and, after a quick throw up, just kind of waving to them at the top.��� Currier continued to push Summerhays up the mountain and on their off days in the weight room. His selling point was the natural made chute of snow, Alaska���s version of a waterslide, that took them halfway down the hill after they reached the top. ���It���s kind of a treat,��� Currier says. Summerhays disagreed. Eventually, though, the Irish junior left about 20 pounds of body weight behind on the trail and was making a race out of their climb. He returned to South Bend in the best shape of his life and has since cinched the No. 1 spot for the fifth-ranked Irish. Summerhays said the extra conditioning this summer allowed him to take more reps in practice and stake his claim to the starting position early. That led to his .937 save percentage and a 1.56 goals-against average, the fifth best mark in the nation. And it���s been a major factor in Notre Dame starting the year 9-1 in conference play and 13-4 overall with the second-best scoring defense in college hockey. ���This summer I think he kind of realized that he wanted to have that breakout season so he really pushed himself,��� Currier said. Irish netminders have a history of breaking out in their junior seasons. David Brown and Jordan Pearce both took over the everyday duties between the pipes in their third season under Jackson, who was himself a goalie at Michigan State. Brown became a Hobey Baker finalist. Pearce started 80 of Notre Dame���s 83 games in his last two seasons. Both went on to set career records in winning percentage, save percentage and goals-against average. Summerhays is on pace now to break their single-season records in all three categories. He started 15 of Notre Dame���s first 17 games and won 11 of them. Jackson occasionally gives him a day off at practice to rest his legs, but the lighter, fitter junior said he feels fresh after a demanding first half of the season. The life of a goaltender in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, though,