The Week in Notre Dame Athletics: Swashbuckling Irish?

For the record, swashbuckling isn't really at all related to fencing, but Irish swordfighters fencers are amazing and have every right to consider themselves swashbucklers. Look it up.

Without further ado, we bring you the results of the last week's Irish match-ups.

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Hockey: The no. 11/9 Irish (16-11-1, 12-7-1-1) fell to Ohio State, 6-3, on Friday night in a match that saw six power-play goals between the competitors. Notre Dame outshot OSU 33-32, with their three goals coming from Mario Lucia, Kevin Lind, and Bryan Rust. The Irish, who logged 25 penalty minutes, switched goaltender for the third period, when Mike Johnson replaced Steven Summerhays. Summerhays gave up five goals in the second period, but four of those came during two power plays favoring the Buckeyes (three goals came within just two minutes during a five-minute major penalty on the Irish). The game was tied at 3-3 late into the second period, but two more second-period goals, also within two minutes of each other (one on a power play), set the Irish back and they couldn't recover.

Saturday, the Irish faced OSU again and this time earned a 2-2 tie. Notre Dame won an extra point in the fourth-period shootout on a goal from Anders Lee. Irish goals came from Thomas DiPauli and Sam Calabrese on a night when they outshot the Buckeyes 47-22 in regulation, which was a season high for ND. Goalie Mike Johnson manned the net for the Irish and allowed both a 5-on-3 power play goal and a short-handed goal from OSU, but stopped all 4 shots he faced in the shootout.

The Irish face Michigan this Friday (7:35 p.m. EST, CBSSN) and Saturday at home.

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Track & Field: The men's and women's teams competed impressively in the Meyo Invitational at home this last weekend, earning six event victories. Those victories came for the Irish in the men's 5000m, 3000m, 400m, and 4x4m relay, and in the women's pole vault and mile. You can find the long list of highlights from the event here.

Wisconsin's Austin Mudd ran a sub-4 minute Meyo Mile at the Invy. Yep.

The Irish next compete in the Grand Valley Big Meet Invitational this weekend.

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Fencing: The no. 3 men's and no. 2 women's teams seriously racked up the wins at the Northwestern Duals, where the women swept all eight of their matches and the men claimed five of six dual wins. The Irish women bested no. 9 Temple, no. 4 Ohio State, and no. 1 Princeton in their matches. The men bested no. 10 Stanford and no. 4 Princeton, losing only to no. 1 Ohio State.

This weekend, the Irish compete in the Duke Duals.

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Tennis: The no. 18 women's team (4-1 dual match record) won out over no. 23 Tennessee, 4-3, in a very tight match on Sunday. They returned to play yesterday at Iowa (we'll have results next week).

The no. 30 men's team (4-3) split their weekend matches with a hard loss to no. 5 Duke, 4-0, and a sweeping win over IUPUI, 7-0. They'll return to action this Saturday at Michigan State, then visit Kentucky on Tuesday.

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Swimming: The no. 20 men's team (9-1 dual record) bested Missouri State, 210-160, and Northwestern, 191-177, in last weekend's Northwestern Invitational. The Irish finish the regular season with their best record since 2006-07. They will compete in the 2013 Big East Swimming and Diving Championships February 27^th-March 2^nd in Indianapolis.

The women's team was idle last week, but this weekend, will face the Toledo Rockets in their final dual meet of the season.

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Basketball: Saturday, the no. 2 women's team (20-1, 8-0) conquered Cincinnati, 64-42, on the back of an impressive performance from Kayla McBride. McBride erupted with 17 first-half points, making 7 of her first 7 shots for the Irish after hitting just 4 of 23 in the previous two games.

The Irish face Villanova tonight (Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. EST, CBSSN), then Seton Hall on Saturday (2:00 p.m. EST).

The men's team (18-4, 6-3) won out over Villanova, 65-60, and DePaul, 79-71 in OT, this last week. Jack Cooley's double-double and Cameron Biedsheid's career-high 18 points led the Irish against Villanova. Against DePaul, Cooley came up big again, snagging 16 rebounds and putting up 26 points.

Last night, the Irish faced Syracuse and took a disappointing 63-47 loss; you can read about the full game in CW's write-up on the front page. The Irish will look for a big home win when they face Louisville this weekend (Saturday, 9:00 p.m. EST, ESPN).

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Softball starts up this weekend as the Irish take on Wisconsin, Charlotte, and Presbyterian in two double-headers. We'll have scores for you next week.

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We'll bring you updates again next week on all our Notre Dame Olympic sports. Go Irish.