SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – After giving up a goal to trail Wheeling Jesuit 1-0, the Notre Dame College women's soccer team came back with offensive force to win 5-1 in their final regular season home game of 2018.
 
Five different players scored, including Stine Austad, whose header tied the game in the 35th minute, and Angelica Mazzocca, who scored the game winning goal with less than a minute to play in the first half.
 
Sarah Grossman assisted the first goal of the game that started a waterfall of scores to follow.
 
After the game head coach Mike Shiels said once his team was able to refocus, things started to go their way.
 
"I think it was just a matter of mindset and making sure we did the small things right," Shiels said about his team's response to going down 1-0. "Sometimes you try to do a little too much when you give a goal up and we did that for a little while, but we seemed to settle down and started making good decisions that led to putting ourselves in positions to succeed."
 
In the second half, Na'pier Ramsey, Saige Ackerman and Alyssa Soltis each scored in the 57th, 73rd and 85th minutes, respectively. Ackerman's goal was assisted by Katarina Doncevic.
 
Overall, three of the five goals were scored unassisted. But looking at the box score does not correctly spell out just how much of a team effort each goal was.
 
"I think a big part of it is that we had players who were able to break the other team down" Shiels said. "We had a lot of penetration in wide areas, which pulled numbers from the other team out; they tried to go defend the player who is able to penetrate on the dribble and when that happened it left spaces open where there would be bodies."
 
After allowing the opening goal of the game, Kyra McDowell was able to save the next five shots on goal from the Cardinals and recorded six saves overall.

Last week NDC was able to secure the Mountain East Conference North Division to earn the right to host their first tournament game. Shiels will be happy to be home in that first contest and happy for his team to reap their hard work and earn the right to host. 

"Anytime you get to play at home is a big advantage. The players have found a way to get things going in the right direction after a rocky start. They've been playing well and we've had a chance in all of our games this season."

Notre Dame will visit Urbana on Sunday, October 28, at 1 p.m. to end the regular season before coming back home the following Friday, November 2, for a MEC Tournament game.