The prolific righty-lefty finishing duo and the nation's top keeper provide Saturday's most intriguing matchup in Foxborough, Mass., at the NCAA Division I championships. At stake for the Greyhounds (16-1) and Fighting Irish (13-2) will be the right to play for their respective programs' first title.
Sawyer, a junior and one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, set a school record in last week's quarterfinals victory against Denver with his 51st goal of the season.
With the Pioneers committed to shutting him down the rest of the way, Lusby, a graduate student who missed most of last year following knee surgery, notched a career-high five goals to bring his own impressive season total to 45.
"It was a great game for him. It was nice to see," Sawyer says of Lusby. "I don't think there's any one person on the team cares who scores, as long as we're scoring."
Scoring could be a challenge come Saturday. Kemp leads the nation in save percentage (.636) and goals-against average (6.23). He stopped 14 shots in last week's 12-10 quarterfinals win against defending champion Virginia.
A measure of Kemp's success can be attributed to the system employed by the close defense unit in front of him that has become a Notre Dame trademark.
"They're so well-coached on defense," Greyhounds coach Charley Toomey says. "They're a slide-and-recover team, and they play a scheme that gives people fits. We have to attack Notre Dame from different spots. If you rely on just one or two guys, you're going to be in trouble."
Says Kemp: "We definitely try to limit the kind of shots the offense gets. We're trying to get them to take low-angle shots. The defense does do me a favor when they can do that."
But Kemp can smoothly take away even the good shots . "I think that just comes from me playing goalie for so long," he says. "The demeanor that I have is a credit to playing the goalie position since I was 6 years old."
A hot goalie can make even the best shooters think too much, as Toomey ? a former goalie at Loyola who started on the Greyhounds team that reached the 1990 championship game ?knows well.
"That's been a topic of conversation with the coaches," he says. "We don't want to overthink our shots. We feel like we have some pretty talented shooters on the corners, but we have told our guys if you shoot a bad shot, it's going the other direction."
Says Lusby: "In order to beat a team like that, so organized with their defense, you really have to be careful about your shot selection. You have to put the ball in a good spot. You can't just shoot."
Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan has concerns of his own with the Greyhounds other offensive options. Justin Ward, the third member of the attack unit, has a team-best 30 assists. Then there's long-stick midfielder Scott Ratliff, who has 12 goals and seven assists in transition.
"When those guys (Sawyer and Lusby) get the ball in certain situations, there's not much you can do. At that point, you're hoping for your goalie to make a play," Corrigan says. "One of the keys to defending them is keeping them out of the transition, whether it's full field ? or half field from scramble situations. It starts with that, then hopefully we can keep a little closer eye on them in six-on-six situations."
ACC rematch: It could be said that this was an off year for the Atlantic Coast Conference. The league only sent two teams to Championship Weekend after three made it to Baltimore last year. But the ACC is guaranteed a finalist for a third consecutive year as No. 3 Duke (15-4) and unseeded Maryland (11-5) are again matched in the semifinals. The Terrapins got the better of last year's tournament meeting 9-4 and beat the Blue Devils 10-7 in March. But Duke won the most recent meeting 6-5 en route to the ACC tournament title.
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomCollegeSports-TopStories/~3/VRlJCHG9Wj4/1
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