Cross-country and football post wins while Matthew Consorte remains torrid goal scorer for ND soccer in the latest weekly recap of ND Athletics. Meanwhile, Tommy Minar displayed a great amount of sportsmanship in sharing his first-place finish with West Haven’s Sebastian Villanueva in the meet between cross town rivals on October 10.
Cross-Country — In a great display of sportsmanship, Notre Dame cross country runner Tommy Minar decided to share his dual-meet victory with his West Haven counterpart Sebastian Villanueva in a race between the city-rivals at Carrigan Middle School on Oct. 10. Minar and Villanueva ran the final two miles of the final regular-season dual meet for both schools within three yards of each other. However, with 200 yards to go, Villanueva, who was in the lead, took a wrong turn. Minar would go on to cross the finish line first in a time of 18:01 on an unusually hot and muggy afternoon.
Minar took it upon himself to console Villanueva immediately after the race in an obvious display of sportsmanship.
“I need to share this victory with Sebastian,” said Minar, who was running for only the third time in the last two weeks due to shin splints.. “He ran a great, great race and was in the lead. It would have been an exciting finish. I felt awful when he went the wrong way. It’s only fair that we share in this first-place finish.”
Notre Dame did win the meet with a score of 19-44 to finish the season with a 6-4 record, a vast improvement on their 2-8 record in 2017.
Football — The Notre Dame defense showed up big time in the football team’s 21-6 win at Xavier this past Friday night. The most consistent unit through the first four games of the season has been the defense.
That was evident again as they kept Xavier out of the end zone until the final play of the game, which actually came after a Green Knight penalty that gave the Falcons an extra untimed down. Notre Dame, who improved to 3-2 on the season, held Xavier to only 77 yards rushing and 11 first downs for the contest.
Sophomore Jamar DeJesus is growing up each and every game. He registered 10 tackles, including two for loss, to lead the defensive effort.
Offensively, Notre Dame received three touchdown passes from Jackson Zalinsky, two of which came on fourth down plays. He connected with Zachary Hochman twice and Robert Oliverio once to account for the Green Knights scoring. ND plays its first game at Veterans Field tonight when they host Amity in a 7 p.m. kickoff.
Soccer — Matthew Consorte scored a goal in each game but the soccer team fell by identical 3-1 scores to New Haven school Cross and Career/Hillhouse. Consorte has now scored one goal in five of the last six Green Knight contests.
Jay Brennan has played stellar in net for the Green Knights, making several spectacular saves in each game. Notre Dame played Hand and Xavier earlier in the week before hosting North Haven on their Senior Night game on Saturday.
They wrap up their 2018 campaign hosting Law on Monday, October 22 at 4:30 pm.
You can get all the latest athletic news, scores, and more by following @NDWHAthletics on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Periscope while frieNDing the @NDWHAthletics Facebook group.