Notre Dame star freshman Izzy Engle has helped Irish soar

One of the best young stars in the country plays for Notre Dame and is already making a name for herself.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish women’s soccer team is on fire at the moment. After starting the season with a loss to the Michigan State Spartans, the Irish have gone 10-0-3. The last two games for the #12 ranked Notre Dame squad were Top 25 wins over a pair of ACC newcomers; #25 Cal Bears (5-2) and #6 Stanford Cardinal (3-0).

Speaking of newcomers… the Irish have a superstar in the making with freshman Izzy Engle.

Engle, a midfielder from Edina, Minnesota, has a really good high school career. She was named as the Gatorade Girls Soccer Player of the Year in Minnesota, and helped lead her school to a 22-0 perfect record and state championship. Those senior year accomplishments capped off a prep career that saw her be an All-State selection three times. While those are incredible feats, she was only ranked #59 by Top Drawer Soccer coming out of high school.

Izzy, chose to commit to Notre Dame because of the opportunity to play high level athletics as well as having access to one of the best educations in the country. She was part of a 12 person class that was ranked #4 in the country, and Head Coach Nate Norman was incredibly excited about Engle’s future on the field wearing Blue and Gold:

“Izzy is an attacking player that can play multiple positions. Her athleticism and ability on the ball allows her to be able to be effective in multiple positions. She is extremely entertaining to watch and is very difficult to stop when she has space and can gain momentum running at a defender. She is someone who will produce a lot of goals by scoring or setting her teammates up Izzy is a wonderful player now but her overall potential is incredibly exciting.”

Coach Norman’s words are almost prophetic.

Engle leads all freshmen in the country with goals scored with 11. Incredibly, 10 of those goals were scored in the seven games of the season. Once the Irish got into ACC play, she kind of hit a wall as far as goals were concerned. On Sunday, however, she finally got over that ACC hump with a goal against the Stanford Cardinal to help the Irish upset the #6 team in the nation.

“Freshman Izzy Engle got the ACC goal monkey off her back with a tremendous afternoon. She was first responsible for drawing the penalty kick in the 50th minute, which led to Notre Dame’s first goal. Leah Klenke scored the PK. Then Engle scored off a cross from Morgan Roy in the 66th minute.”

Luckily for her and for the Irish faithful, the pressure to score is helped by some fantastic play from a fellow freshman, Ellie Hodsden. She [Hodsden] scored three goals in the win over Cal and another in Sunday’s victory over Stanford. While Engle leads the Notre Dame team in goals scored with 11, Hodsden is second on the team with 8.

The Irish are soaring right now, and they will need both Engle and Hodsden this week as they travel to Durham, North Carolina, to take on the #1 ranked Duke Blue Devils. Notre Dame’s postseason hopes this year look to be quite promising, but even more so with these freshmen, the program’s future as an elite team is promising as well.