Eno Nto's goal, clutch defense propel Notre Dame into College Cup final
On Friday morning, Notre Dame senior goalie Bryan Dowd was named a first-team All-American by the United Soccer Coaches. On Friday night he and the Irish defense more than rose to that occasion.
And because of that, the second-seeded Irish will play for the NCAA men’s soccer national championship Monday night at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Ky., after subduing upstart and unseeded Oregon State, 1-0, on Friday night at the same venue.
Ninth-seeded Clemson (14-3-5) — a team the Irish took down 3-2 at home back on Sept. 9 — will be the opposition when the Irish shoot for their second-ever national title in the College Cup, beginning at 6 p.m. EST on Monday.
The Tigers arrived with a 1-0 victory over No. 5 West Virginia in Friday's first semifinal.
Eno Nto’s goal at the 51st minute and the clutch defense that ensued kept the Irish (13-2-6) from heading to penalty kicks for the third straight tournament game to decide a winner. It was the team-leading 11th goal of the season for the junior from Derby, England.
The Irish have yielded just one goal in 400 minutes of NCAA Tournament action to date during their run to the 2023 championship game.
“We knew it was going to be a hard game," Notre Dame coach Chad Riley said. "Overall we’re just super proud of the team and how they handled the 90 minutes. We were a little disappointed at halftime. We felt we could have played a little bit better, a little bit smarter in the first half.
"The team responded incredibly well to start the second half with [Eno Nto] scoring an unbelievably good goal, but I just think we were smarter, we responded well, and we looked more like ourselves."
Notre Dame’s lone title in the sport came during the 2013 season.
Oregon State was without head coach Greg Dalby, a former Notre Dame All-American, and midfielder Javier Armas. Both were suspended for the balance of the tourney for a clerical error involving Armas and his eighth yellow card this season and the Beavers (11-6-5) using him illegally in their 1-0 NCAA quarterfinal victory over North Carolina.
Dowd made four saves in the game, but the Irish defense had key stretches around those saves, perhaps the biggest coming from Josh Ramsey in the 68th minute. The junior saved a shot off the line and then got up and kept the ball out of the net in a scrum close to the goal before Dowd finally collected it.
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