Corina Riismandel burns energy in the same, voracious way she burns goalkeepers.
Riismandel has just aced a psychology test after pulling an all-nighter. Before cramming for the test that night, she contributed two goals and an assist to the College of Notre Dame's 4-1 soccer victory over Catholic University.
Another project always seems to await Riismandel. She has to finish a soon-to-be-published paper, detailing a recent student fellowship in which she studied the effects of cocaine on mice at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
With another year of undergraduate work until she earns her biopsychology degree, she is thinking about medical school. Maybe she'll travel for a year or earn money working in a research lab before returning to the classroom.
In the meantime, Riismandel will find time for one more fall season to continue her favorite extracurricular job -- scoring goals.
Riismandel just has concluded an outstanding junior season, which followed a superb sophomore season, which followed a terrific freshman year. She smiles and looks away shyly as you rattle off a list of numbers that sums up her energy on the field.
For three seasons, Riismandel has been Notre Dame's leading scorer. This fall, she got 20 goals and nine assists, leading the Gators to a 13-4 record, the best in the Division III program's six-year history.
This is nothing new for Riismandel. Over three seasons, she has 65 goals and 16 assists, 1.35 goals per game, fifth in the Intercollegiate Soccer Association of America record book.
"You get a lot of glory at forward, but I can't score if no one else plays well," Riismandel said. "I've gotten lucky a lot. I score most of my goals in the box. It's not usually when I'm beating my man, one-on-one. It's usually off of crossing passes, when I get into position to score. I get lots of help."
There are helpers, and there are finishers. Consider that she has scored at least one goal in 35 of 48 career games. The Gators, after their first winning season in 1991 (8-6), have gone 35-11-3 over the past three years.
Reason No. 1 is Riismandel, who has accounted for more than 50 percent of Notre Dame's offense in her career.
"It takes a special breed to play forward at this level. Corina is that breed," said Gary Lynch, Notre Dame's coach. "There has never been a ball she has shot that I wished she would have passed. Her slumps are very short."
Riismandel isn't particularly fast or athletic. She doesn't have an especially hard shot. Ball control and shot placement are her fortes. She is an exceptional follow-up shooter. And be on guard if you're blocking her path.
"She is not afraid to get her uniform dirty. She'll sacrifice her body for the ball. You don't want to mark her," said Carrie Stallings, a senior forward at Notre Dame who has assisted Riismandel on the majority of her goals. "If you give her the smallest window, she's through it in a second."
Riismandel charted an unlikely course to Notre Dame, beginning with her soccer experience. During three varsity seasons at Centennial High School, she played defense almost exclusively, helping Centennial win a state title in 1991.
After graduating, Riismandel was prepared to leave soccer behind and head for Wake Forest.
"I didn't want to stay in Maryland," she said. "I've been living in Maryland on the same street all my life, and I was looking to get out and get the real college experience. I didn't want to concern myself too much with soccer."
But Lynch, who had coached Riismandel's younger sister, Tanya, on an Olympic Development Program team, convinced Corina to think about Notre Dame. The cost would be substantially less, the class sizes would be drastically smaller -- Notre Dame's all-female enrollment is 600 -- and she could keep playing soccer.
During the summer of 1992, Riismandel qualified for a full academic scholarship, thanks largely to a 1,270 Scholastic Assessment Test score, and decided to become a Gator.
Lynch noticed in the first practice that Riismandel had a knack for putting the ball in the goal. He was looking for scorers.
Riismandel justified Lynch's decision with a spectacular freshman season. She scored a career-high 26 goals. She has been unstoppable since. Riismandel has recorded eight hat tricks.
"Last year, I went through a valley of four or five games when I didn't score," she recalled. "That bothered me. I'm thinking, 'Am I losing it? Am I never going to score again?' You can't think about it too much. If I don't play instinctively, I don't play very well. Practice is the time to think, not in games."
Riismandel thinks about her final college season. The Gators, who are making strides each year, beat three ranked teams this fall. But, because the school is not affiliated with a conference and the program is so young, national notice has come slowly.
"Mr. Gary [Lynch] has suggested the possibility of reaching 100 [career goals] next year," Riismandel said. "It's something to go for, but a bigger goal would be helping the team get to a national tournament."