South Carolina women’s soccer advances to Sweet 16 with win over Notre Dame
South Carolina women’s soccer is back in the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in six seasons, defeating Notre Dame 1-0 in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Friday at Stone Stadium.
Sophomore forward Riley Tanner scored the game-winner with her second goal in as many games, and the standout Gamecock defense extended its run of not allowing a goal past 550 minutes in the win.
USC senior goalkeeper Mikayla Krzeczowski picked up her 49th career shutout with one save — Notre Dame had two shots on goal all night, both off corner kicks. In the first half, sophomore defender Sutton Jones cleared a header off the line, and in the second, Krzeczowski fell on the ball amid a clump of players inside the six-yard box.
“We don’t really see it as a streak. It’s more game by game, we pride ourselves on having a clean sheet,” senior defender Grace Fisk said. “It’s not something we reflect on necessarily to keep it, but I think it is important for defenders. It’s sort of our goal, like you know, attackers get the goal, but our goal is keeping a clean sheet. So we just aim for that every game, and I think obviously if we do that then we have a good chance of winning and we just hope our forwards can deliver, which they did.”
The forwards came through in the 41st minute, as a Notre Dame goal kick bounced around the midfield with neither team establishing any real possession. Eventually, Gamecock redshirt freshman midfielder Samantha Chang intercepted a pass and found Tanner just outside the 18-yard box.
Tanner fed senior Elexa Bahr on a give-and-go, slipping free while the defense was turned around, and Bahr found her wide open in the left side of the box. She slotted the ball home into the lower near corner of the net to give the No. 2 seed Gamecocks all the offense they would need.
“Very good build up. I was looking obviously to go to goal and (Bahr) played a great ball through, and I just did my job as a forward and finished the ball,” Tanner said.
USC had threatened earlier off another Irish goal kick in the 23rd minute, but Bahr’s lofted volley was straight at Notre Dame goalkeeper Mattie Interian.
Both teams got early opportunities — Ryan Gaeris’s shot for South Carolina was easily saved by Interian, while Maddie Mercado’s attempt for the Irish sailed over the crossbar.
For most of the early going in the first half, though, South Carolina dominated possession and got the majority of chances, but none came close to actually scoring.
“We had some chances tonight (to get a two-goal cushion) that we didn’t quite finish, would have been nice to put those in,” Smith said. “But our defense did strong once again. And we put ourselves in positions in score and limited them to few opportunities, which is a huge credit to the entire team and what they’ve been doing all year.”
Into the second half, USC held steady, putting up four more shots but never extending the lead, while the defense stayed firm and snuffed out every chance.
“They’ve kind of built a team where they have some very dynamic forwards, and they don’t need to put a ton of numbers forward to really generate chances,” Notre Dame coach Nate Norman said of the Gamecocks. “And so they’re able to do that, and once you go down against them, it’s hard because they really clamped down and make it tough for you.”
NEXT
Who: No. 2 seed South Carolina vs. No. 3 seed Kansas
When: 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 24
Where: Stone Stadium
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 8:01 PM.
