Notre Dame 2015-16 Year In Review: Top Male, Female Rookies
Top Five Male Rookies
1. Axel Kiefer (Fencing) — The first-team foil All-American for his third-place finish in the NCAA Championships already was noted among the top five male athletes overall at Notre Dame this past school year. His gene pool is outstanding. Father Steve was a fencing captain at Duke while older sisters Alex and Lee have combined to win four NCAA foil titles at Harvard and Notre Dame, respectively.
Lee Kiefer placed fifth in the foil at the 2012 Summer Olympics in Great Britain, was Notre Dame's NCAA Champion in foil from 2013-15, and she took the past year off to train for the Summer Olympics in Rio.
2. Matt Vierling (Baseball) — The outfielder earned Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American notice while starting all 54 games (27-27 record), one of only three players to do so on the team, and finishing second in home runs (6), RBIs (29) and runs scored (26), tied for second in walks (20) and third in hits (55). He also had a .985 fielding percentage and pitched 10 innings, allowing no earned runs over the final seven. The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game/Rawlings feted him as a second-team Freshman All-American.
3. Josh Adams (Football) — After undergoing major knee surgery early in his junior high school season, Adams arrived with relatively limited fanfare and had redshirt return all over him when he arrived last summer as maybe the No. 5 option at running back.
Instead, he scored from 14 yards on his first career carry, versus Texas in the opener (adding another 25-yard TD later in the contest), and his 835 yards rushing broke the Notre Dame freshman record of 786 set by Darius Walker in 2006.
With 168 yards rushing at Stanford in the regular season finale, he also eclipsed the single game frosh standard of 148 set by Jerome Heavens versus Georgia Tech in 1975. It was Adams’ fourth 100-yard effort of the season, tying the single season mark set by Heavens, who would later eclipse George Gipp's 58-year career rushing record for the Irish.
4. Ryder Garnsey (Lacrosse) — Surrounded by a veteran cast of stars in the lineup, the ACC Freshman Of The Year finished second on the Irish goal-scoring list with 27, tied for second in assists (12) and third in scoring (39 points). He also was among the nation’s leaders in shooting percentage at .443.
5. Justin Yoon (Football) — Considered the nation’s top freshman kicking prospect entering the 2015 campaign, Yoon lived up to the billing by earning Freshman All-America notice. He converted 15 of 17 field goals, notably each of the last 12 (highlighted by one from 52 yards versus Navy). Over the final nine games, Yoon missed neither a field goal nor an extra point (50 of 52 overall) while tallying a Notre Dame freshman record 95 points.
Top Five Female Rookies
1. Sabrina Massialas (Fencing) — In March, the ACC Women’s Fencer of the Year for foil merited first-team All-American notice by finishing third nationally in her event. In April at Bourges, France she captured the FIE Junior World Women’s Foil Championship, defeating top opponents from Russia, China and Italy, among others, in the process.
Five former Notre Dame alumni in fencing will be at the Rio Summer Games this summer, and down the road Massialas appears headed for a similar destiny.
2. Anna Rohrer (Cross Country/Track) — The heiress to the phenomenal legacy of 10-time All-American Molly Huddle (2006 Notre Dame graduate and 2016 Summer Olympics qualifier) and 2015-16 four-time national champ Molly Seidel could be Rohrer. Her 19:59.7 clocking at this year’s NCAA Championships was good for sixth in the 6K run, with Seidel winning it all in 19:28.6. Their performance propelled the Notre Dame women to finish No. 8 in the final team standings.
Rohrer also finished second to Seidel in the ACC Championships and was fourth in the 5,000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Track Championships on March 11 (with Seidel winning that too). Rohrer was the top freshman in the country and the only one in the Top 10.
3. Ali Wester (Softball) — Younger sister of star captain Karly Wester also started all 56 games (43-13) at either second base of left field and finished second to big sister in batting average (.423) and hits (77) on the Top 25 team. The Huntington Beach, Calif., native was second-team All-ACC and named one of 10 finalists for National Freshman of the Year.
4 (tied). Arike Ogunbowale/Marina Mabrey (Women’s Basketball) — After the blindside departures of All-America Jewell Loyd and captain Taya Reimer, the Irish needed the two freshmen to grow up well ahead of schedule. They did during the amazing 31-1 regular season, with Instant Offense Ogunbowale finishing third in scoring (11.4 points per game) and Mabrey fourth (10.7), plus placing second in steals (53) and third in assists (69).
Their advanced growth is one of the reasons why Notre Dame at the end of spring was considered the “way too early” No. 1 selection for the 2016-17 campaign by both ESPN and Sports Illustrated.
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