The first game of the Greg Ryan era

The University of Michigan women’s soccer team opened up the 2008 campaign with a 7-0 loss to No. 5 Notre Dame Friday evening (Aug. 22) on Alumni Field.
The Wolverine netminders were faced with an unrelenting attack of 34 shots. Freshman goalkeeper Haley Kopmeyer (Troy, Mich./Lasher) got the start and made three stops in 45 minutes in her collegiate debut between the posts. Senior Madison Gates (Baldwinsville, N.Y./C.W. Baker) and redshirt-freshman Kristen Keane (Wheaton, Ill./Warrenville South) split the second half. Gates stopped three shots in 28 minutes of work while Keane made four saves -- three of the spectacular nature -- to close out the contest.
"It is a good thing for us because we need to see where are problems are -- things that we can fix. This game shows us everything we need to know about what we need to improve on and what we need to work towards. A national championship contending team like Notre Dame is going to expose you and we got to see where our weaknesses are, what is going to cost us games. There were two or three areas, in particular defensively -- we pretty much gave them two or three goals. They are very fixable but we are going to have to work on it. It takes a team like Notre Dame to expose you because they are talented enough find those little chinks in the armor." - Greg Ryan