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No. 3 Notre Dame Women Deal With Vast Attrition

Freshman Mikayla Vaughn was lost for the season with a torn ACL suffered in Tuesday's practice.
Freshman Mikayla Vaughn was lost for the season with a torn ACL suffered in Tuesday's practice. (Notre Dame Media Relations)

In college basketball, an eight-player rotation is usually more than sufficient.

Eight scholarship players on the roster, however, leaves an extremely slim margin of error.

That’s where No. 3-ranked Notre Dame (7-0) finds itself with the news this week that 6-3 freshman forward Mikayla Vaughn, a top spark off the bench through the first six games, will be lost for the balance of the season with a torn ACL suffered during Tuesday’s practice.

The Irish lost All-America forward Brianna Turner to an ACL tear last March in the NCAA Tournament, and then senior guard Mychal Johnson also tore her ACL during an Oct. 23 practice.

In her first road game, versus a Western Kentucky team that had upset No. 16 Missouri, Vaughn scored 16 points (8-of-9 shooting) and grabbed seven rebounds in a 78-65 victory. One game later in a 72-67 win at No. 18 Oregon State, Vaughn had eight points and seven rebounds in 16 minutes

“It’s just heartbreaking to see another one of my teammates go through a long-lasting injury,” said senior Kathryn Westbeld, who also has been limited to about 20 minutes per game because of ankle surgery last April that has not healed fully. “She was doing really well, she started off great, she catches on to things, she’s honestly one of our loudest, vocal people on the court, so that’s really going to hurt us.”

The injury occurred on a non-contact play that junior guard Marina Mabrey described as a “freak accident.”

“When it happens, everyone kind of knows and the gym goes silent, and it’s just kind of hard to see someone else know their season has ended,” Mabrey said.

Head coach Muffet McGraw was amazed how strong the Irish bounced back the next day with a dominant 83-63 win at No. 22 Michigan.

“It’s just so hard to understand how this keeps happening,” McGraw said. “…It’s just staggering to have to go through it three times in [eight months].”

Women are far more susceptible to ACL injuries than men, but McGraw said all three players were “doing different things when it happened.”

“It’s hard to continue practice when the air gets sucked out of the gym,” McGraw said. “Your first reaction is to stop practicing and make sure you have everybody mentally prepared. We went on …we have a lot to overcome. This team has really handled adversity well so far and I see no reason why they won’t continue to do well.

“I think you think, ‘That could be me’ — and you know it could be you. I think it’s harder for the girls that have gone through the injury. They relive it again. It’s hard for all of them. They’ve all seen it happen, they all know they could easily switch places with them.

“It makes them hopefully appreciate where they are and really give it 100 percent. When you look over the bench, you see those three girls with the knee injuries and you know that I’ve got to give it my all because I know they’d want to be out there, and I’m doing it for them.”

The Irish and No. 1-ranked UConn are the only two teams in the country to already defeat four ranked teams, and they will meet Sunday afternoon in Hartford (ESPN, 4 p.m.). The Huskies are the overwhelming favorite to win their 12th national title since 1995, and fifth in the last six years.

In addition to the eight scholarship players, the Irish also have added two walk-ons in guard Kaitlin Cole and forward Maureen Butler. Notre Dame would be truly reeling had the NCAA not granted Nebraska transfer and two-time 6-4 All-Big Ten forward Jessica Shepard a waiver to play this season. Plus, 6-4 Kristina Nelson opted to return for a fifth season.

At Michigan, McGraw actually had the 6-2 forward Westbeld start up front with Shepard so that point guard Lili Thompson could come off the bench, instead of starting four guards.

“It’s just nice to look down the bench and know we can sub in a guard,” said McGraw of Thompson, who ended up playing “starter minutes” with 29 while Westbeld had 22. McGraw might not always have Thompson come off the bench, but for that specific night she felt it was the way to go with matchups.

Meanwhile, 6-2 freshman Danielle Patterson’s development also will need to be accelerated. She’s not as natural in the post as Vaughn or Nelson, but she did play 13 minutes at Michigan.

“We need her defensively, we need her rebounding, we definitely need her to be able to give some people a break and to be in the game,” said McGraw of Patterson. “I think she’s going to grow throughout the year and the experience will be good for her.”

The head coach noted there might be one alteration to practices.

“We’re going to be in great [physical] shape,” McGraw said. “The players are going to all contribute, everybody is really focused and ready. It’s just a question of how long do we go. We’re going to be playing a lot of minutes, so we might want to shorten practice just a little bit.”

Junior guard and leading scorer Arike Ogunbowale said no opponent will pity the perennial powerful Irish, so the team can’t afford to wallow in its woes.

“They were big parts of our team, but we still have games to play, so we have to move on from it,” Ogunbowale said.

“It just makes us better, it makes us tougher,” Mabrey added. “We have to stay mentally strong and keep moving forward.”

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