Notre Dame avenges loss to Jackson

Notre Dame midfielder Courtney Luehmann is very friendly with the majority of girls who play for Jackson because she plays a lot of soccer with them during the offseason.

"I play with a lot of girls on my select team, so I love most of them," Luehmann said. "But on the field, I don't have any love for them."

Luehmann has good reason for her no-love approach. In her two years of varsity soccer with the Bulldogs, she never had beaten her rival Indians squad.

That was until Tuesday night. Luehmann had a strong game, which included netting a first-half goal and playing the entire 80 minutes, to help Notre Dame to a 2-0 home win.

Many of the Bulldogs players, including Luehmann, labeled the victory as a revenge win after Jackson had beaten them Monday by four goals.

"I just really wanted to beat them bad because I knew they shouldn't have beaten us 5-1 [Monday]," Luehmann said. "We had a couple mistakes and I just really wanted to come back and beat them. We haven't beaten them the last couple years."

Notre Dame improved to 10-1 while Jackson dropped to 11-2.

Jackson's Jenni Tenholder, left, and Notre Dame's Courtney Luehmann went up for a ball.

Luehmann's goal was scored a little more than halfway into the first half on a direct free kick. She said she felt calm taking the shot.

"I paid attention to nobody and I told myself I needed to relax and I knew I could do it," Luehmann said. "Mostly just to relax. It was very important to win. Since I've been playing for Notre Dame, I've never beaten Jackson. So it was really important for me."

Luehmann, who transferred to Notre Dame last year as sophomore, said her goal was her second on a free kick this season. She has been playing with some of the Jackson players since she was in fifth grade and calls them her sisters. Jenni Tenholder, Bobbi Jo Schlick and Sam Watson are a few she's played a lot with over the years.

Notre Dame coach Jeff Worley said he was impressed with the way Luehmann kept up her intensity throughout the game despite never resting.

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Notre Dame forward Anna Wren, left, struggled for control of the ball with Jackson senior defender Chelsea Dale during Tuesday's game at Notre Dame.

"She's physically probably the strongest player I've ever coached for girls soccer," Worley said. "She's a presence out there. Courtney didn't come out of the game tonight. ... Part of it was we wanted to push them and see how good we can be and how far we can push with our physical limits and our conditioning. You can't really replace her strength out on the field. You just don't have a full team of those players. So I wanted to see what she had in her. And she was impressive."

Notre Dame goalie Shelley Frank added about Luehmann: "Courtney is probably our most aggressive player. She'll do anything you ask of her. She'll head it in. She'll head it out if we have to. She'll push someone down if she gets mad enough. She does everything."

Luehmann said that when the Bulldogs lost to Jackson on Monday, they struggled moving the ball around, making crisp passes and taking quality shots.

"Definitely the performance we had [Monday] made us want to come out and do better and made us focus more and know that we needed to warm up better and do everything better," Luehmann said. "It just made us realize that we needed to work harder."

Senior Jordon Radetic scored Notre Dame's second goal with about 2 minutes, 20 seconds left in the contest.

Radetic is not a starter. She has spent the entire year before Tuesday coming off the bench to play defense, but Worley opted to rotate her up front.

It was her first goal of the season.

"It was really fun to play, especially to score," Radetic said.

"Allyson Bradshaw was playing out on the wing and she kicked it in and it deflected off the goalie's hands and she dropped and I just went straight through the ball and kicked it in," Radetic said. "I ran through it. At halftime we had a 1-0 lead, but we still had 40 minutes to play. We knew we needed to come out with 120 percent effort."

Frank had a strong performance in net for the Bulldogs with 12 saves.

"We knew their intensity level was going to up," Jackson coach Julie Wunderlich said. "And it is just one game and we'll bounce back from it. They just played with more intensity. [Monday] they just kind of backed off and weren't winning 50-50 balls. It's a learning lesson for us and we'll move on from here."